Ly, PTLawson, Gillian2018-06-0520160587-3452https://hdl.handle.net/10182/9528From 1986, Vietnam experienced accelerated urban development with the introduction of a reformed market-oriented economy. New housing types, including modern shop houses, detached houses, and apartments, were designed in many towns and cities, in order to satisfy dwellers’ new lifestyle aspirations in Vietnam. Since then, contemporary housing, which has been mostly designed by foreign influenced architects, has reflected rules of spatial organisation in which occupants’ social activities are considered in the same ways as those in Anglo-European housing. These contemporary houses however seem unsustainable in relation to Vietnamese environmental concerns and sociocultural values. Their designs promote the use of homogeneous spatial patterns, modern technologies, materials and construction methods. A study of the characteristics of spatial organisation in vernacular architecture was undertaken in the context of socio-cultural change in Vietnam. Three main housing types were assessed in three regions of Vietnam. The focus was on identifying possible shifts in spatial patterns before and after the country’s economic reforms in the 1980s. The theoretical framework of Lefebvre’s social production of space underpinned the approach to the work. Space then was understood to be an artefact of occupants’ everyday activities. The rules of organisation of domestic spaces were revealed to shape the future of sustainable Vietnamese housing design.pp.132-135GermanhousingVietnamsocio-cultural theoryliving spacesspace organisationJournal ArticleANZSRC::1201 Architecture