April 11th, 2024.
Today was hot. Driving the motorcycle, I felt like inside a hair drier. After a couple of hours in the sun, I had to come back to the guesthouse. Baked, burned. I fell in a slumber most afternoon, finally muster up the energy for another drive at 4pm. I’m glad I did.
I ended up at Indochine café, an open space café with no walls but fifteen inverted-cone shaped bamboo columns. The café, designed by Vietnamese architect Võ Trọng Nghĩa, uses bamboo to create a space unique to this material. I love the openness of the space and the organic feel of the bamboo columns and roof. I rejoice in the care for design details and the harmony between materials. In my mind, this is what a great communal space should look like, a place where a community can gather, get inspired by the structures they share.
I could also see how a structure needs to adapt over time, as we interact in it. In this café, there are some added elements that clearly where not part of the original design. One example, the aluminum fluorescent lights instilled on the roof, just above the delicately designed lamps. I’m thinking somewhere along the structure’s life, someone said, “Its kind of dark in here”. Details like this reminds me no matter how careful planned something is, people’s way of interacting with stuff around us changes over time.
I start driving back to the guesthouse, stopping by a bridge to see the sunset. There are some fishermen on the shore, I take some pictures and head back to recover from the days heat.
