On a street corner in the city of Huê, Vietnam, surrounded by much more conventional buildings, a translucent tower glows, revealing its interiors to passersby. On the bottom floor is the Tiam Coffee Shop, welcoming visitors in to sit down for a hot beverage. Above it is a luxurious multi-story home for a three-generation family of seven, topped by a peaceful “sacred space.” Fitting a lot of functionality into a tiny urban footprint, the building pairs a minimalist, mostly-white palette with traditional Vietnamese materials and layouts.

Designed by Nguyen Khai Architects & Associates (NKAA), the four-story residence is a fresh take on the Vietnamese architectural trend of wrapping homes with airy perforated facades that blur the boundaries between indoors and out, regulate sunlight, and allow for plenty of natural ventilation. In this case, vertical white louvers set in front of all-glass walls provide just the barest hint of privacy for the building’s inhabitants, with wide horizontal strips blocking views from the sidewalk below. This visibility to the world outside is buffered by placing less private functions on the outer edges of the building, like dining tables, kitchen counters, and stairways.
The design began with an existing 18-year-old house that was in dire need of renovation. The footprint measures just 376 square feet, and is fully occupied at the lowest level by the café run by the building’s owner. The nearly all-...