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TAM GIANG - CAU HAI LAGOON COMPLEX, HUE: (2018-19)
Location: Tam Giang-Cau Hai Lagoon, Thua Thien Hue Province Vietnam
Designers: RUA (Bruno De Meulder, Kelly Shannon with Elena Kasselouri, Nguyen Quang Minh, Annelies De Nijs and Namguel Hubert) with VIUP (Vietnamemse Institute if Urban Planning)
Commissioned by: Department of Construction, Thua Thien Hue Province
Period of Design: 2018– present
VIETNAM
Ecological Requalification of Tam Giang-Cau Hai Lagoon
For the spatial development strategy of the 60km long Tam Giang-Cau Hai Lagoon in Thua Thien Hue Province, requalification of dune coastal ecology was a primary motive. The lagoon is the largest in Southeast Asia, an estuary of the Perfume River, and located 20 km downstream from Hue.
Re-constructing a deep section of the dune and lagoon landscape, inspired by the dune section in Ian McHarg’s well-known Design with Nature, provides the basis for reconstituting the dynamic landscape and defining a development strategy.
Proposal for Ecological Reserve and Indigenous Vegetation
The lagoon is proposed to become a “reserve,” a naturally protective, essential, and vulnerable ecological environment that is replanted with indigenous vegetation. Most habitation of the fragile and dynamic system is proposed to be on the “back dune” (of the primary dune) and selective parts of the old dune. This strategy aims to protect the natural landscape while accommodating sustainable development.
Cultural Landscape and the “City of the Dead”
At the same time, a new open-canopy forest structure clusters the “city of the dead”—an extraordinary cultural landscape of tombs (De Meulder and Shannon 2019)—as a series of ecological stepstones and demarcates a larger cultural mosaic that is systematically intertwined with the settlement-in-the-making.
This approach integrates cultural heritage into the ecological framework, ensuring that traditional landscapes coexist with new developments.
Multifunctional Land Use Strategy
In opposition to conventional land-use planning, each of the environments generated within this reconfigured dune section performs a multitude of roles. For example, the afforested tomb landscape simultaneously performs ecological and protective functions. This multifunctional strategy enhances the resilience of the landscape to environmental changes while preserving its cultural and ecological significance.
