Photo: Foster + Partners
Foster + Partners, one of the UK’s largest architecture firms, has announced their plans for a “city within a city” in Vietnam.
Foster + Partners said that the district, named “The Global City,” will be 290 acres (about half a square mile). It will be built around a long “spine” of trees and greenery in Ho Chi Minh, the country’s biggest metropolis.
The project includes high- and low-rise residential buildings, public housing and villas, schools, a shopping mall, and medical facilities. It is flanked by two waterways and will feature five different neighborhoods connected by a central park, boulevard, and pedestrian bridges.
According to Toby Blunt, a senior partner at Foster + Partners, the firm inherited the overall masterplan but was tasked with enhancing “its integration to nature, while increasing pedestrian connectivity between the different neighborhoods,” he wrote via email.
Masterise Homes says that the project is projected to complete in four years. Masterise Homes is a property firm also working on The Global City.
In a press release, Foster + Partners’ studio head Gerard Evenden emphasized the number of green spaces in the plans. “The design seeks to strike a balance between biodiversity and human well-being,” he said, calling it “a holistic, sustainable masterplan for the future.”
The press release added that the district’s design references the architectural traditions of Ho Chi Minh City through the use of brick and timber. Ho Chi Minh is known for its broad mix of styles, from French colonial landmarks like the Saigon Opera House to concrete modernist apartment blocks and contemporary additions to the skyline, like the lotus flower-inspired Bitexco Tower.
Foster + Partners is known for projects like the Hearst Tower in New York and 30 St Mary Axe, known as “The Gherkin,” in London.
“The Global City” is one of several futuristic masterplans that the firm has developed in recent years, revitalizing urban areas or creating new sustainable communities in densely populated cities. For example, Foster + Partners’ overhaul of Stockholm’s central Slussen district is set to be complete by 2025, while the sprawling South Sabah Al-Ahmad, a new city, will house an estimated 280,000 residents in Kuwait is scheduled to open in 2040.
The architects are also working on another project in Vietnam: the two-tower VietinBank Business Center just outside of Hanoi, in the country’s north.
