Bui The Long, founder of CTA | Creative Architects, established the firm in 2014 with a vision to redefine sustainable residential architecture in Vietnam. Based in Ho Chi Minh City, CTA | Creative Architects is driven by a team of young architects dedicated to continuous learning and creative exploration. Under the leadership of Bui The Long, the firm has developed a distinctive architectural language that blends environmental sensitivity with modern design principles.
CTA | Creative Architects is known for projects such as the Wall House in Biên Hòa, which exemplifies nearly zero-impact green architecture, and the Am House in Long An province, reflecting a contemporary reinterpretation of traditional Vietnamese architectural elements. The design philosophy of Bui The Long emphasizes harmony with nature, using natural materials and spatial strategies that enhance environmental integration.
Bui The Long’s leadership has guided CTA | Creative Architects to receive significant recognition, including the Top 10 Brick Award 2022 for the Wall House and multiple Top 10 Houses Awards from the Vietnam Association of Architects. In this interview, Bui The Long shares insights into CTA’s design process, the firm’s approach to sustainability, and the architectural values shaping their innovative projects.
What inspires you?
Everything around us can be a source of inspiration for our design process: from nature, culture, and history to people. Specifically, addressing issues related to living spaces in society and creating harmonious environments where humans and nature coexist constantly drives our creativity.
What inspired you to become an architect?
When I was a child, I lived in the countryside with no neighbors nearby, so I spent most of my days wandering around the garden. One day, a carpenter came to our house to craft wooden furniture for my family. He set up a temporary workshop right on our front porch. With the curiosity of a child, I spent hours, day after day, watching him plane wood, carve joints, saw, and assemble. During that time, I stopped roaming around the garden entirely. The craftsmanship of the carpenter fascinated me completely, and I believe that was the beginning of my inspiration to study architecture later.
How would you describe your design philosophy?
Most of our projects are built in Ho Chi Minh City, a region with a tropical monsoon climate. In recent years, the overall climate of the area has been increasingly warming, with annual peak temperatures surpassing those of the previous year. Through years of practice and continuously addressing the impact of the local climate on buildings, we have developed five key principles that define contemporary tropical architecture:
1- Self-insulation: The building envelope should incorporate a combination of solutions to mitigate the negative effects of direct sunlight while creating a microclimate that supports human activities in a comfortable environment.
2- A breathing house: A building is like a living organism; it needs to exchange air 24/7. Therefore, we cannot rely solely on windows for ventilation. When the windows are closed, the building suffocates. We must employ various methods to bring fresh air into the building, ensuring it remains “alive.”
3- Delay of human activities with solar radiation: At different times of the day, solar radiation only negatively impacts certain spaces of the building. If we arrange areas where people have activities out of phase with the solar impact cycle, even though solar radiation has a negative impact on the building, it will not have any effect on the users.
4- Open spaces and greenhouse effect: Contemporary architectural works often have large open glass spaces, but if not handled carefully, these glass panels will create a greenhouse effect, causing the building to heat up. To limit this problem, spaces with large glass panels always need a large awning system to limit most of the effects of solar radiation on the glass roof system as well as arrange 24/7 ventilation slots in the area. this area to eliminate the greenhouse effect.
5- Trees and water surface: two elements outside the building that we can fully take advantage of to minimize the impact of solar radiation on the envelope, minimize concretion as well as contribute to improving the create a microclimate for the project.
What is your favorite project?
Our favorite projects always lie in the future. During the project implementation process, we always find it interesting and new to see the project take shape little by little. We had absolutely no idea what the finished project would look like. Maybe that’s what makes design interesting.
Which architectural detail do you like the most?
In 2018, we carried out the Wall house project, we designed a very large skylight to provide enough light for the greenery system in the living room and dining room areas. When the project was built, we encountered a rather difficult problem: This area was getting too much sunlight, and it was difficult to balance the amount of sunlight just enough for the trees without affecting the use process. use. Everyone in the office has worked a lot but still hasn’t found the optimal solution. It was surprising that the problem that was making it difficult for our office’s design team was solved by the construction contractor in an extremely smart and simple way: He used a 1x2cm eyelash stone to spread a thin layer on the glass to regulate the amount of sunlight entering the house. Where there was too much light, he spread a lot, and where there was a lack of light, he didn’t spread it at all. The details are extremely simple but extremely effective and extremely economical, and the results are also extremely impressive.
Do you have any favorite materials?
We work with all materials, from concrete, brick, stone, iron, and steel… we don’t particularly love any type of material, just the materials that we accidentally work with a lot so they become familiar.
What is your process for starting a new project?
The first thing we do when starting a project is listen:
– Listen to customers’ thoughts about the project they want to build
-Listen to the natural conditions and surrounding context of the land
– Listen to local social conditions
When you listen enough, ideas will germinate.
How do you balance functionality and creativity in your designs?
It is a matter of weighing and measuring criteria with a clear priority order. We and the customer work continuously together so that the project achieves the criteria in the priority order that everyone has set unified.
How does the environment affect your work?
Our office is located in Ho Chi Minh City, which has a tropical monsoon climate. Most of our projects are in this area. Through many years of practice, and constant handling of issues related to the impact of local climate on the project, we have formed a 5 Points make up a tropical contemporary architecture that I mentioned above.
How do you partner with customers to realize their vision?
We always think very clearly that we design houses, but the people who stay there for life are customers. The customer’s home, not ours. So we hardly put ego or personal interests into the project. If the project is formed based on personal ego, then we think that after 10 projects, we will no longer have anything new to bring into the project, but if we focus on forming ideas from the customers’ own lives, Then for each new project, I have a new topic, I no longer have to struggle to find new things for the project, the nature of the new customer is that the project is already new. With this way of operating, the project is always developed around the life needs of customers.
What inspired 2Hien House?
That is the life of our customers, they are people who highly appreciate traditional Vietnamese architectural values, they collect old brick and tile materials before working with us. That is the inspiration for us and our customers to create the most suitable living space for them.
How have materials shaped the design and sustainability of 2Hien House?
As shared above, when sitting and talking with customers at the first meetings, we discovered that both husband and wife are very fascinated with old materials, they have collected a lot of old bricks and tiles in the past a long time. We came up with ideas around the homeowner’s preferences, thereby forming a link between the ideas, so when presenting the plan, we hardly had to persuade, we simply adjusted a few things to the location to better suit the individual needs of guests. Everything happened very naturally in 2Hien House.
Do you have any advice for young architects?
After many years of practice, our office has gone through many internships. But every year we realize that students lack a lot of basic knowledge, and this basic knowledge after graduation is a huge obstacle in their professional practice. So we have decided to build a personal development roadmap for architecture students. We hope that they will be patient enough to practice them like practicing a kick thousands of times, and then everyone will understand the value of each move work.
