HÀ NỘI — The Mirror House in downtown Hà Nội’s Thống Nhất Park was awarded the silver trophy at the International A’ Design Awards, the jury board announced on Tuesday.

The House was awarded the prize in the category of Public Arts Design for Society and the Environment.

The Mirror House, or Laughing House, was built in 1979 with support from the former Czechoslovakian government. It was built in the shape of a huge snail shell, with 50 mirrors reflecting distorted reflections of visitors.    

Last year, the house was in a state of disrepair, with oxidized mirrors, a leaking roof, and damp walls. Hà Nội’s authorities assigned painter Nguyễn Thu Thủy and her colleagues from the Tân Hà Nội (New Hà Nội) Company to renovate the House and turn it into an artistic structure decorated with ceramic designs.

Thủy took inspiration from the ocean, in an effort to captivate the imagination of children, the House’s main visitors.

The new design of the Mirror House won applause from the jury board of the International A’ Design Competition, the world’s largest and most internationally dispersed international design awards event.

Thủy is set to visit Como, Italy, in June to receive the prize. Images of the Hà Nội Ceramic Mirror House will be exhibited in MOOD Museum during the occasion.

This year, the organising board received 1962 nominations from 100 countries in 99 different disciplines of design.

The A’ Design Awards were established to raise public awareness of outstanding design practices and principles. The ultimate aim of the award is to build strong incentives for designers, companies and brands from all countries to come up with better products, services and systems that can benefit mankind.

The competition therefore highlights and pushes forward worldwide designers and brands to create products and projects that offer additional value, increased utility, and new functionality, alongside offering superior aesthetics, efficiency, sustainability and performance. — VNS