© OMA

Hanoi New Town Masterplan

The organisation of the New town consists of articulated East/West strips, an alternating landscape of built and unbuilt, urban and green. The strips are flexible, reacting to site conditions like the dike and existing water. The strips vary in width to accommodate different urban conditions. They ensure the proximity of urban and green and contribute to good living conditions in the New Town. The strips allow a gradual transformation and urbanisation of the site, comparable to the aging rings of a tree.

The Central Business District and the Riverfront District are articulated as exceptional moments in the New Town, due to their programmatic and geographic importance for Hanoi.

The Riverfront District, conceived as a lake with a chain of islands, shows most explicitly the full integration of water in the urban scheme. Water, to be used for leisure and transport, for promenades and views, becomes part of the qualitative experience of Hanoi.