The headquarters building of the Saigon Liberation Newspaper, located in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, is a reinforced concrete and partially steel structure, comprising two basement levels and sixteen above-ground floors. The first and second basement levels are designated for parking, while floors 1 through 6 accommodate the newspaper’s offices, including halls for lectures and events. Floors 7 to 15 are leased as office spaces for media-related companies, and the top floor serves as a press club and cafe—creating a vibrant hub for information exchange that symbolizes 21st-century Vietnam.
The building features a multi-layered facade inspired by the climate and culture of Asia. It allows users to switch between an active mode that relies on air conditioning and a passive mode that maximizes natural ventilation, adapting to the dynamic natural environment. Notably, it incorporates various “light and wind devices,” such as light walls that diffuse natural light into soft, indirect illumination, and air towers that channel breezes based on CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) analysis. These elements embody a nature-friendly concept of “breathing architecture.”