When every square foot counts and your home is designed to occupy as much of a limited urban plot as possible, access to outdoor space can seem like a luxury only suburban and rural residents can enjoy. This is especially true in the world’s most heavily populated cities, where a front yard or backyard would likely open right out onto a busy street densely packed with motor vehicle traffic and pedestrians alike. That doesn’t exactly make for a relaxing ? or healthy ? outdoor experience. But, contemporary architects are finding creative ways to work around this issue, designing layouts that provide access to fresh air and views even in the most challenging of circumstances.
Some common solutions seen in cities like Tokyo, the world’s most highly populated metropolitan area, include building internal courtyards to create private outdoor spaces or hiding balconies and patios behind secondary facades. But H&P Architects is calling attention to a more unusual way to fuse indoor and outdoor urban living, and it takes its inspiration from a surprising source.
One need look no further than the terraced rice fields of Vietnam to see where the architecture firm found a basis for a new kind of urban living. This traditional agricultural arrangement makes it possible to farm on hilly or mountainous terrain, and ensure that every level has access to sunlight, fresh air and rain. The same qualities extend to the architectural version created by H&P Architect...