Brazilian firm studio MK27 designed 18 luxury vacation villas on tuan chau island in UNESCO world heritage site halong bay, vietnam. Located in the south china sea between vietnam and china, the protected site is an idyllic network of limestone islets whose formation date to prehistory. The new residential and commercial area is scheduled to have schools and a hospital in the 20 hectare area of the island by 2020. The built form must attend to the complexity of the culturally rich site while balancing the programmatic needs of a changing, human-centered landscape. The complex of vacation villas capitalizes on the ideal climate of the paradisiacal bay while integrating a material and formal language adapted from latin america. A characteristic horizontal volume is clad in breeze-admitting, passive shading devices and architectural masses are cut with bands of glazing that invite the carefully conserved greenery. The villas also reclaim the waterfront with a mix of rock wall tectonics and wide-grained wooden paths. An open plan allows for the buildings to supercede their roles as envelope and become subtle mediators between vacationers and the unspoiled, bay-soaked terrain.
