Some Thoughts on Rural Housing Design in the Red River Delta Through Heritage Housing Experiences and Contemporary Challenges

From ancient to present, the house in the Vietnamese concept is not only a shelter from the sun and rain, but also a home to preserve traditional culture, a family’s beauty, and a place to nurture the soul of Vietnamese people. When revisiting rural housing architecture through historical periods, from the feudal period to the French colonial period, the period of the subsidized economy and the post-renovation period, along with the quick speed of urbanization, the construction of rural architectural houses in Vietnam faces many challenges such as changing production methods, habits and lifestyles, design, economic and technical perspectives. Since then, rural architecture, especially rural architecture in the Red River Delta, has changed rapidly. More and more multi-storey houses with reinforced concrete materials have been built to replace houses with traditional architecture. The area of ponds and lakes is increasingly narrowed or gradually filled. The modern urban space is gradually overtaking the traditional space of the countryside. At present, the entire rural infrastructure system in the Red River Delta has almost been “transformed” by many localities. Rural house architecture is transformed in the trend of integration, following the trend of building new countryside with the influence of urbanization and industrialization. Through the research of some practical experiences on several housing design theories, which have become heritage, we thereby present the views and principles of new rural construction, making the Vietnamese countryside more civilized, rich, and beautiful, but not hybrid, while maintaining the characteristics of the traditional village culture. It is essential to evaluate the architectural changes of the countryside so that planners and experts can make appropriate policies, recommendations, and development principles for rural area architecture in the following years, contributing to the process of rural renovation according to the current policy of the Vietnamese Communist Party and State.