Four-metre-wide Roof House squeezes gardens into every level
A house only four metres wide has found room for gardens, terraces, play, work and a family of four.
Roof House stands at the end of an alley between two residential buildings in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, according to Dezeen. It was designed by Trung Nguyen Architects, the practice founded by Nguyen Van Trung, for a young family with two children.
The site measures just 77 square metres. That is smaller than many city apartments. The width is the real squeeze, roughly the length of a family car, so every metre of floor space had to work hard.
The architects start with the outdoors rather than the front door. Visitors step into a yard-like entrance garden filled with planting. A terracotta-paved terrace wraps around a tree at its centre, making shade and soil part of the arrival.
From the street, the steep terracotta-tiled roof does most of the talking. It rises sharply over the narrow walls and gives the house its name. Clay tile of this kind is laid in overlapping rows to throw off heavy rain, a practical choice in a tropical city.
Inside, the guiding idea is simple. Each room has access to a small garden or terrace. No room is buried in the middle of the plan. Every bedroom, work corner and living space can open a door or a window straight to air, daylight and leaves.
On the first floor, that idea takes the form of a multi-purpose landing and a children's bedroom. A landing, the open area at the top of stairs, is used here as extra living space rather than just a passage. The children's bedroom sits alongside it, with its own link to the outside.
Higher up, the second floor holds a studio and library space. A studio here means a flexible work and making room, while the library is a quiet reading spot. The two upper levels are linked by an open terrace and blue-painted steel steps, so moving between sleep, play, study and reading means stepping outside for a moment.
What makes this stand out is the restraint. There are no grand gestures on a plot this tight. Tile, plants, small terraces and a bright blue stair do the work instead, giving a young family pockets of outdoor life on every level without needing a bigger footprint.
