Sim Café & Apartment

  • Main Data
    Client: A family of 3
    Adress: District 9, HCMC
    Type of building: Café cum private house
    Construction Area: 380 m²
    Design: 2006
  • ADA Services
    Initially designed at Archi concept team led by Adrien Desport (as chief architect of Site Architecture Saigon), the design was afterwards completed by Adrien Desport at ADA.
    The services comprised Architecture and Interior Design.
  • Design Description of the Sim Café
    The first intention was to propose a design that could accommodate the two superposed functions (the café and the apartment) without any conflict between them so that neither of them dominated the other.
    We decided to create a building that would be perceived as one entity, entity that could be seen whether as a café or as a dwelling follow what the people would expect to find there.
    As a consequence a hierarchy was established between a dominant neutrality and components exposing the two functions: While the structure grid gave this neutrality, components such as the glass colors of café, balconies and shutters of apartment introduced the internal functions
    The second objective was to create a place that would contrast with its surrounding residential chaotic. As a consequence the lines were simplified and the structural frame of the building, covered with dark basalt stone, ordering its façade composition.