|

A Modern Home in Tien Giang That Honors Vietnamese Architecture

ByMyProperty Life

In the center of Vietnam’s Tiền Giang province, Noah’s Nest is a modern home steeped in tradition. Designed by Archiro Vietnam for acclaimed actor Lâm Thanh Nhã, this compact yet thoughtfully envisioned residence gracefully fuses local heritage with contemporary architectural ideals.

Indoor space with green plants in a corner, a green and brick wall, tiled floor, wooden table and chairs, and two hanging light bulbs from a woven ceiling.

Built with a modest 603-square-foot layout, Noah’s Nest is designed to honor the owner’s roots while leaning into modern Vietnamese architecture. Rather than relying on imported, industrial materials, the home showcases locally sourced elements such as baked clay bricks, bamboo poles, straw mats traditionally used in rice storage, and ornamental stone mortars. These choices go beyond aesthetic appeal – they ground the home in the cultural fabric of the Mekong Delta, paying tribute to Tiền Giang’s agricultural identity.

Read another article:Design Trends for Creating a Vacation Vibe at Home

A modern kitchen and dining area features a black spiral staircase, indoor plants, brick walls, and natural light from large windows and a glass door.

The deliberate contrast between rustic textures and clean, modern lines creates a space that feels both familiar and fresh. This balance between tradition and modernity allows the home to blend into its rural surroundings while asserting its unique architectural identity.

An open kitchen and dining area with wooden and bamboo decor, large windows, hanging lights, and a view of a garden with a bicycle outside.

Read another article:Hot Trends: 20 Best Farmhouse Style Kitchens in White and Wood

Despite its compact interior space, the home is designed to feel open and expansive, thanks to strategic skylights and integrated greenery. Natural ventilation flows freely through the structure, reducing reliance on artificial cooling in the tropical climate. Indoor plants and outdoor views are incorporated throughout the layout, emphasizing biophilic design and fostering a healthier living environment.

A person prepares coffee in a modern kitchen with brick walls, open shelving, pendant lights, and a large window.

The philosophy behind Noah’s Nest extends beyond materials and form. With its unfinished walls and open windows, it’s a living structure – one that, like a nest, requires attention, love, and shared responsibility. These intentional imperfections give the home character and remind its inhabitants of the evolving nature of family life.

Read another article:Revamped Small Barcelona Apartment Combines Multiple Styles and Finishes

A kitchen with wooden cabinets and a stone countertop looks out through a large, irregular brick-framed window onto a courtyard with a bicycle, plants, and a striped metal gate.

A hallway with exposed brick walls, wooden doors, a wooden bench with decorative items, and a painting, next to a black metal railing and a window.

An open wooden door leads to a hallway with brick walls, a wooden floor, and a table with a potted plant at the end.

For its actor owner, the home is a creative sanctuary. The tactile familiarity of childhood materials, combined with the peaceful rhythm of rural life, offers a space for introspection and inspiration. Here, away from the demands of city living, Nhã can tap into new ideas for his craft, contributing to the growth of Vietnam’s film and artistic culture.

Bedroom with exposed brick walls, wooden floor, a bed with green bedding, white curtains, and an open hallway leading to another room with a plant and painting.

A modern bedroom with a bed, green bedding, a freestanding bathtub on pebbles, large windows with white curtains, and plants; a person stands near the balcony door.

A unique feature throughout the home is its use of integrated indoor rock beds, which serve both functional and aesthetic purposes. On the ground floor, a rock garden anchors the open-plan living area, wrapping around a spiral staircase that leads to the upper level. This sculptural focal point is softened by lush greenery, blurring the lines between architecture and nature. Upstairs, a second rock bed becomes the base for a floating bathtub, positioned directly across from the bed in the spacious primary suite. Enveloped by tropical plants and natural textures, the bathing area feels like a private spa retreat – bringing tranquility and biophilic design into the heart of the home.

A modern bathroom with a freestanding tub, indoor plants, a wooden chair, exposed brick walls, and sheer curtains by a sliding door leading to a balcony.

A bedroom with a large bed, open book, freestanding bathtub, potted plants, sheer curtains, and exposed brick walls under a woven ceiling with hanging light bulbs.

A silver bicycle with a front basket is parked against a wall with a large, irregular hole exposing brickwork, next to potted green plants on a tiled floor.

A modern patio with potted plants, a gravel walkway, and a bicycle leaning against a wall featuring a large round window with exposed brick edges.

Potted green plants on a wooden deck next to a brick and metal fence with an open gate, casting striped shadows on gravel ground.

The home’s exposed brick construction is the result of close collaboration between the design team and local craftsmen. This technique not only highlights the tactile beauty of handmade materials but also optimizes building efficiency and cost. By showcasing the natural tones and patterns of the bricks, the home gains visual warmth while reducing the need for added ornamentation. Hidden within the brickwork are structural components, skillfully integrated to give the illusion of simplicity while offering robust support.

Two-story brick house with large windows and a gated entrance, featuring greenery in the front yard and two people visible, one upstairs and one downstairs.

A modern house with brick and metal fencing stands beside a muddy, narrow road at dusk, with visible power lines overhead and neighboring buildings nearby.

Two-story modern brick house with a black gate and balcony, exterior lights on, situated along a muddy dirt road with a fenced-off garden area.

Architectural sketch of a modern building with curved elements, a sloped roof, a patch of grass, and a tree, drawn in pencil and colored pencil.

An open sketchbook shows a pencil drawing of a modern house and trees, surrounded by colored pencils and a sharpener on a wooden desk.

For more information on Noah’s Nest and Archiro Vietnam, visit archiro.vn.

Photography by Dat Bui.

Caroline Williamson is Editor-in-Chief of Design Milk. She has a BFA in photography from SCAD and can usually be found searching for vintage wares, doing New York Times crossword puzzles in pen, or reworking playlists on Spotify.

Similar Posts

  • House of Shifting Sands

    Sited gently on the lower slope of a dramatic sixty foot high coastal bank and surrounded by miles of undeveloped Cape Cod National Seashore beaches and scrub pines is a warm, modern beach house that is more than just a place to enjoy uninterrupted ocean views and sea breezes. Our clients dreamed of a house that would work equally well as both a year-round family “camp” and also as a “thinking retreat” for collaborating with their colleagues. From the beginning of design it was critically important to us and to our clients – as well as the Town Conservation Commission and National Seashore representatives – that the house fit into its fragile site seamlessly. Our team responded with great care by designing the house to curve and shift softly with the natural topography and also by envisioning the new native and drought resistant landscaping growing back tight to the house as if both had always been there together. The main house is conceived of as a collage of overlapping, cantilevered planes and volumes that culminate in a large living / dining space defined by an asymmetrically arcing copper roof plane. Entry to the house is by way of a long ramp through what will in a few years be a thicket of native pines and bushes, then through curving cedar shingled planes. The inland side of the house is tucked into its shifting, sandy landscape and is comprised of cedar shingled planes that float above the ground and contain bedrooms, bathrooms, and the kitchen, and lower volumes of horizontal tongue and groove cedar boards that enclose bedrooms and a gathering space for teenage sons. On the Cape Cod Bay side, the house opens up through walls of glass to endless water views and heavenly sea breezes. In the middle of the house, just inside the front door, is an architectural “hole” that allows the house to breathe and cool itself naturally most of the year through its floor to ceiling awning windows, and which also provides views of the sky from a shady breezeway on the lower level. Along one wall of the hole is a trellis planted with evergreen and seasonally aromatic flowering vines. On the Cape Cod Bay side, the house opens up through walls of glass to endless water views and heavenly sea breezes. In the middle of the house, just inside the front door, is an architectural “hole” that allows the house to breathe and cool itself naturally most of the year through its floor to ceiling awning windows, and which also provides views of the sky from a shady breezeway on the lower level. Along one wall of the hole is a trellis planted with evergreen and seasonally aromatic flowering vines. Separated from the main house by a screen porch and contiguous deck, is a separate art / yoga / thinking studio that seemingly floats fourteen feet above the ground. Inside is a single large loft space as well as a full bath, and below is an open-air summer art studio and boat / beach toy storage, behind walls of wood slats and matching barn doors.

  • Space-Savvy Goodness: 10 Small Kitchens with Tiny Breakfast Zones

    In modern homes, nothing is more essential than space and how it is utilized makes or breaks the look of the interior. In small kitchens, every inch matters. While most people view wall-mounted cabinets, sleek open shelves and mobile islands as the perfect way to maximize space, there are still plenty of other options that […]

    You’re reading Space-Savvy Goodness: 10 Small Kitchens with Tiny Breakfast Zones, originally posted on Decoist. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Decoist on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.