From Provence to Mekong Delta

The visitor centres in Can Gio, south Vietnam and Bruoux en Provence in the south of France are designed by the architectural firm DE-SO and DE-SO Asia.

Both buildings integrate into their respective landscape and climate. The Bruoux en Provence building was built in 2010 and Can Gio in 2020 10 years later.

Slightly elevated above natural ground level, the Can Gio pavilion reception areas benefit from the cool sea breeze a naturally ventilated gazebo that overlooks the mangrove swamp.

Built into a hillside, the Bruoux en Provence mines visitor centre concourse benefits from thermal inertia and the freshness of the ground, burying into the earth to create a shaded "cool" space for visitors that overlooks the ocher cliffs paved square.

Each building is built from local materials a constructive choice that favours short supply circuits of the natural materials - laterite stone in the sandy mangroves of the Saigon River, timber and concrete from a site in Provence. The Can Gio building is the grey colour of the mangrove silt, and Bruoux the orange the colour of the ocher in Provence.