In Ho Chi Minh City, the economic development has stimulated the transformation of the cityscape. Contemporary models induced an alteration of urban typologies. Most notably, the vernacular city is being replaced by a rigorous grid. Public space is unequivocally considered by specialists as a space of flows, aestheticizing, and/or commercial activity. While social life would naturally develop in nebulous network of tiny streets creating multifunctional, vibrant and attaching places, it is reduced and controlled in the modern one.

Invited to participate to the placemaking festival :Playtime, they seized the chance to play with the city by making a temporary public space installation in an alleyway of the city’s central district. Inspired from the quotidian Ho Chi Minh city, where the perpetual improvement of streets relies more on people’s actions and ingenuity than on massive infrastructural mutations, the concept induced minimal design and physical changes to let spontaneous response happen.

In fact, pop-up square was conceived as a simple experiment to engage the largest audience possible in the conversion of the site into an area dedicated, for an afternoon, to leisure. Out of the ordinary scenes, they picked three elements to make the place.

First, a red duct tape was plastered on the floor to limit a square and protect it. Usually minimised, sacrificed for other priorities, public space here had its territory. Not a parking lot, announced the tape, and very quickly, a police officer watching over the project ordered a neighbour to move his car away.

Within the borders of the red lines, the public space was then furnished with hammocks. Global symbol of rest, they are also found along Vietnamese highways, where most coffee-shops offer hammocks areas for travelers to enjoy a nap. While the plastic chairs, a buoyant streets’ classic, are often associated with commercial activities, hammocks and their comfortable sight made a clear statement: this public space was for leisure, relaxing and enjoying the moment. The message was received by neighbours, passers-by and participants who came in and installed themselves while pursuing their discussions.

The ubiquitous plastic chairs were still present – but not their traditional function. They stood atop of each other in towers of various heights, like totems of this reconquered moment. And the infinite repetition of these structures linked this very local element back to a global conversation started with Brancusi.

As people gathered during the time of the installation, the space lived from their appropriations and uses. Finally, a dance performance by the Vietnamo-Belgian company t.r.a.n.s.i.t.s.c.a.p.e enriched the experience as they blurred and expanded the territory’s boundaries, further echoing to the daily life of Ho Chi Minh City streets.

With this installation, they emphasised the resourcefulness of ordinary Vietnamese public spaces and the subsequent capacity to do lively spaces with little design; a perspective they want to defend, as landscape architects, in the debate on placemaking.

Project details

Design: LJ-Group
Project Location: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Typology: Public space, urban space, installation
Built: 2018
Leader designer & team: Pedro Pedalino, Daniel Alonso, LJ-Group
Area: 300 m2
Photo credits: © LJ-Group

LJ-Group

LJ-Group

LJ-Group is a network of landscape architecture studios dedicated to the research and practice of thriving outdoor spaces. They offer a range of services tailored to the specific needs of each project. For over 30 years, LJ-Group has been dedicated to designing modern landscapes for a variety of clients from all over the world. From the first office in Rio de Janeiro, the network has now expanded to well-established branches in Brazil, Vietnam and Portugal. Their landscape solutions are diverse in scale and type, but always integrate users’ needs with the surrounding facilities and natural environment. LJ-Group combines extensive knowledge of nature and landscapes with contemporary ideas about people and culture. They always consider the human dimensions in a space, be they cultural, historical, or physical. Natural shapes, materials, and designs are thereby a continuous source of inspiration.