Unique ceramic tree house in Bat Trang village

Artist Nguyen Thu Thuy conceived this architectural idea in April 2017 when she was on her way to the United States to receive the Bronze Award for the decoration of Da Nang International Airport. From Hanoi to Narita Airport in Tokyo, Thu Thuy had to wait from morning until afternoon to catch a flight to Los Angeles, so she pulled out pen and paper and created a design. In her mind, Thu Thuy formed an architectural block in the shape of a garden. Soaring columns of ceramic would support metal spheres with real creeping vegetation forming green arches. The overall vision creates a healthy array of trees with ceramic trunks and a real green canopy. Thu Thuy’s goal was to encourage Bat Trang’s residents to focus on export and trade, therefore it was important to pay attention to the beauty of their ceramic house and showroom. This setting would create a beautiful pottery village to attract both domestic and foreign tourists.

The 12 columns surrounding the house serve as strong trunks supporting the upper 12 arches.

The building is built on a fan-shaped piece of land of 465m2. The two-story building with an area of 320m2, will be a ceramic showroom. The 12 columns surrounding the house serve as strong trunks supporting the upper 12 arches. When designing this ceramic tree house Thu Thuy thought of giant baobab trees in Africa with tall, sturdy trunks that result in many years of growth. The facade of the house is clad in yellow manganese ceramic tiles designed by Thu Thuy. Each ceramic tile measures 15cm x 23 cm, covered with warm yellow manganese glaze, symbolising earth in the five elements. Thinking about how to bring traditional decorative motifs from the time of Hung King's dynasty into modern architectural decoration, Thu Thuy embossed Dong Son patterns on ceramic tiles. These tiles depict interesting historical stories from the era of the Hung Kings from the third century BC.

Although the building has a new, modern and unique look, hidden inside are ceramic decorative details relating to the traditional history and culture of the Vietnamese nation. The bottom two meters of each trunk are monolithic cast ceramic pillars with embossed Dong Son motifs and covered with dark cobalt blue glaze. The branches are shaped ceramic mosaic tiles, which are flattened 2cm across, 10 to 15cm high, interwoven between cobalt, green, blue and turquoise colors. The ceramic trunks are covered with thousands of small ceramic mosaic tiles, creating a sparkling effect in the sun and reflecting on the manganese color of the facade. Compared to the original design drawings with the entire trunk and pillars supporting the top of the tree in the same blue color, artist Thu Thuy changed the design by decorating each pillar supporting the trunk with mosaic star fruit, peach and apricot flowers. The decoration of flowers and supports for the arches of the trees makes the building look very attractive.

The building is expected to attract more domestic and foreign visitors to the village.

Designer Thu Thuy, couple Cuong and Duyen and others working on the project are extremely pleased as the building project continues to develop and becomes more impressive every day. Thu Thuy said: “The greatest happiness of the Designer is how the creative ideas have been incorporated into the project and the design process is coming into reality. It is a great pleasure to introduce this project to a wide range of friends and participants at the A'Design Awards & Competition 2020 International Design Competition so they can see and evaluate this work.”.

Artist Nguyen Thu Thuy