Kontum Indochine Café Takes Bamboo to Whole New Level

By Land8: Landscape Architects Network on June 4, 2015 No Comments / 6388 views

Kontum Indochine Café by Vo Trong Nghia Architects, in Kontum, Vietnam. The Kontum Indochine Café is located in Kontum, Vietnam. It was designed by Vo Trong Nghia Architects and was built in January 2013 This bamboo creation has an area of 551 square meters (5,390 square feet) and is located near the Dakbla River in Kontum city. It is part of a hotel complex in which the natural color of the bamboo creates an open space where the hotel’s guests can have a different dining experience. The café has a breakfast, dinner, and tea area for the guests. Bamboos are some of the fastest-growing plants in the world, due to a unique rhizome-dependent system. Certain species can grow 35 inches within a 24-hour period, at a rate of three centimeters an hour (a growth of approximately one millimeter every two minutes). Bamboo has a higher compressive strength than other wood, brick, or concrete and a tensile strength that rivals steel.

Kontum Indochine Café. Photo credit: Hiroyuki Oki

Kontum Indochine Café

In its natural form, bamboo as a construction material is traditionally associated with the cultures of South Asia, East Asia, and the South Pacific, and to some extent Central and South America and by extension in the aesthetic of the Tiki culture. In China and India, bamboo has been used to hold up simple suspension bridges, either by making cables of split bamboo or twisting whole clumps of sufficiently pliable bamboo together. This insight into this material will help you to better understand the Kontum Indochine Café, which uses a lot of this wood for its magnificent concept and structure.

Kontum Indochine Café. Photo credit: Hiroyuki Oki

Inspired by the Vietnamese Baskets The concept of building a space where you are one with nature while safely experiencing the scenery is an amazing accomplishment. The architects were inspired by Vietnamese baskets used for fishing to build the bamboo columns. The structure is supported by bamboo via 15 inversely shaped cone supports.

Kontum Indochine Café. Image courtesy of Vo Trong Nghia Architects

Taking Full Advantage of Natural Light A shallow artificial lake sits right next to the café, reinforcing the open nature concept that has been established. Functioning like a forest canopy, the café has plenty of natural light. The climate is muggy, allowing guests to experience a real forest-like environment without the use of air conditioning. Bamboo Related Articles:

Kontum Indochine Café. Photo credit: Hiroyuki Oki

Maximizing the Wind Flow By providing shade under the bamboo ceiling, this open structure maximizes the wind flow in the building during the summer and resists the severe storms during the windy season. The characteristics of bamboo are different from wood or steel. When the data and method of building structures of wood or steel are applied to bamboo, the advantages of the bamboo can be affected. The roof is covered with panels of reinforced plastic and straw. The Right Material in the Right Place Traditional treatment methods are used for the bamboo, as well as low-tech data sets suitable for this type of structure. The columns were prefabricated before being installed to achieve adequate quality and precision. The idea here is to respect the nature of the bamboo as a material for construction and to create a distinctive space exclusively for this material. It is a material so right for the space that it almost seems like it was there before it was constructed. To keep the natural concept in this project, the architects decided against using steel for the structure support; instead, they took a prefabricated one off-site to minimize the waste.

Kontum Indochine Café. Photo credit: Hiroyuki Oki

Different Materials Means Different Thinking This café is a groundbreaking achievement in the landscape scene and also a well-executed plan. I do believe that by using different materials, instead of the more usual ones (steel, concrete, or stone), we can develop more efficient projects by letting nature guide us into what it is that we should do. Kontum Inodchine Café is a great example of letting nature “take its course” — seeing what the wood can do for the space, and how the landscape can adapt to it. Land and space are well thought out here. The combination of light, bamboo, and water has resulted in an amazing creation.

Kontum Indochine Café. Photo credit: Hiroyuki Oki

Full Project Credits for Kontum Indochine Café

Project: Kontum Indochine Café Program: Cafeteria Architects: Vo Trong Nghia Architects Location: Kontum, Vietnam Architect In Charge: Vo Trong Nghia Architect: Dau Nhat Quang Contractor: Wind and Water House JSC, Truong Long JSC Area: 551 sqm Status: Built in 01. 2013 Photographs: Hiroyuki Oki Site area: 1,150 m2 Building Height: 6m Number of Rooms: Open space café + annex kitchen Show on Google Maps