Architect Phan Đăng Sơn, Chairman of Vietnam Association of Architects, speaks at the launching ceremony of the competition to search for social housing design ideas towards sustainable solutions. — Photo courtesy of the organiser

HUẾ CITY — A competition to search for design ideas towards sustainable solutions for social housing was launched at the 10th National Young Architects Festival in Huế City on September 26.

The competition is organised by the Vietnam Association of Architects and implemented by the Architecture Magazine under the direction and sponsorship of the Ministry of Construction.

At the event, Architect Phan Đăng Sơn, Chairman of Vietnam Association of Architects, called on young architects, organisations, individuals, design consultants, investors, and businesses to actively respond to submit their entries and share their specific elements so that social housing designs can adapt to the local climate and culture.

The competition aims to find design ideas, as a basis for research, to form typical design models with component units being apartments, with the ability to flexibly arrange the combination into housing units, housing groups, housing clusters, housing areas, and urban areas.

Architectural design ideas for social housing need to be feasible, aiming to form good designs, capable of flexible modularisation, mass industrialisation and high applicability for replication in many localities.

It also encourages design options that flexibly meet requirements for functionality, modernity, convenience and architectural form suitable to local cultural identity, adaptable to regional climate and soil conditions, and capable of responding to climate change and natural disaster prevention.

Competition proposals need to be feasible, effectively apply green technologies and solutions, reduce costs and design and construction time, creating a premise for sustainable development in the direction of typicalisation and modularisation of social housing in Việt Nam.

The winning ideas will serve as the basis for the Ministry of Construction to continue researching and implementing sample and typical design steps, widely applying them in localities, thereby reducing administrative procedures for construction permits, saving time and costs, and ultimately putting the project into construction.

With a total prize value of up to VNĐ1 billion, the competition results will be announced and awarded in December 2025. — VNS