The Studio Threads Light and Air Through a Three-Storey Family Townhouse on a 4-Meter Plot in Quy Nhon

Q: Who wrote "The Studio Threads Light and Air Through a Three-Storey Family Townhouse on a 4-Meter Plot in Quy Nhon"?

This article was written by UNI Editorial and published on uni.xyz, a platform for design professionals and creative thinkers.

Q: What is "The Studio Threads Light and Air Through a Three-Storey Family Townhouse on a 4-Meter Plot in Quy Nhon" about?

This article covers topics related to Residential Building, Architecture, Tiny House, Building Design, Vietnam Architecture, Concrete House, Modern Housing. In Quy Nhon, Vietnam, a 62 m² family home turns its central stair into a skylit, book-lined spine that carries daylight and breeze through every floor.

In Quy Nhon, Vietnam, a 62 m² family home turns its central stair into a skylit, book-lined spine that carries daylight and breeze through every floor.

5 min read·1 reads

UNI Editorial published Blog under Residential Building, Architecture on Nov 11, 2026

Vietnam's tube house is one of the most persistent urban types in Southeast Asia. It is narrow at the street and deep at the back. It is usually dark in the middle and hot under the roof. Tomi House, completed in 2024 by The Studio in Quy Nhon, starts from that familiar problem. The plot measures 4 by 15.5 meters, and it sits inside an existing residential neighborhood. Its listed area of 62 m² matches that footprint exactly. Lead architect Nguyễn Đức Thế and interior designer Đặng Thị Thu Thủy had very little room to work with, and they responded by giving away more of it.

What makes the house worth your attention is a priority, not a gesture. The architects treat the stair, the voids and the skylights as the main rooms of the house rather than as circulation. Daylight and air are pulled down through the center of the plan, and family life is arranged around that shaft. The pink arched terrace on the street front is the image people will remember. The real argument of the project, though, happens three meters behind it.

A Street Face That Filters Instead of Shouting

Street facade of a narrow townhouse with a pink arched terrace, perforated screen and red gate under a clear blue sky

Close view of the arched upper terrace, pink breeze block screen and orange railing in strong afternoon sun

The street elevation works as a series of layers. At the bottom is a red gate. Above it, a pink breeze block screen wraps the upper terrace, and an arch caps the composition. Ventilation blocks are standard practice in tropical Vietnamese housing, and here they serve as both privacy filter and sun baffle. Behind them, the occupied rooms can stay open to the air without being exposed to the street.

The color is a deliberate choice, and we think it is a smart one. A 4-meter frontage could easily disappear among its neighbors. The pink and orange palette gives the house a clear identity while staying within the vernacular of the street. The arch takes a domestic form and puts it at civic scale. It is warm and legible, and it does not need to be any bigger to be noticed.

Terraces as Rooms, Not Leftovers

Study desk and black chair facing a sliding glass door onto a pink arched terrace with a bonsai at midday

Pink terrace with red clay tiles, a black chair and a potted bonsai, with sunlight streaming through roof openings onto the walls

The front terrace is a real room. It has red clay floor tiles, a single chair and a bonsai, and roof openings let sunlight wash down the walls. A study desk faces it through a sliding glass door, so the act of working is oriented outward toward greenery and sky rather than into a corner.

On a plot this tight, the temptation is to enclose every square meter. The Studio instead gives up floor area at the front to create a buffer of shade and air. The terrace mediates between street heat and interior comfort, and it gives the family an outdoor space that a 4-meter lot would normally deny them.

The Stair as the House's Spine

Timber staircase with orange balusters beside a built-in bookshelf, daylight falling across the stone-textured wall

Timber stair landing with coral red balustrade, built-in oak bookshelves and a small child's table under soft daylight from above

Timber stair flights with orange balustrades, a round window and flower-shaped shadows cast across the white wall by daylight

Most narrow houses hide the stair against a party wall and minimize it. Tomi House does the opposite. The timber flights sit at the center of the plan, framed by orange and coral red balustrades. Built-in oak bookshelves line the landings, and a small child's table occupies one of them. The stair becomes a library, a play area and a reading nook, stacked vertically.

This is the most persuasive move in the project. If circulation has to consume a large share of a tiny footprint, it should earn its keep. Placing shelves and furniture on the landings turns dead transit space into the place where the household actually meets. A round window and flower-shaped shadows on the white wall show that the architects considered how light would perform at this exact point.

Working the Light Down the Shaft

Diagonal shaft of sunlight crossing a white stairwell wall beside a wall-mounted bookshelf and trailing ivy above a red railing

Upward view of the stairwell toward a patterned skylight, with a red railing, bookshelf and hanging plants

Looking up the stairwell, you see the source: a patterned skylight with ivy trailing over the red railing below it. A diagonal shaft of sun crosses the white wall during the day and moves as the hours pass. In a deep plot, this vertical opening does the job that side windows cannot.

The white walls matter as much as the opening. They bounce daylight down into floors that would otherwise depend on artificial lighting. The hanging plants soften the hard edges and suggest that the shaft is meant to be lived with, not simply looked through.

Living Spaces Arranged Around the Void

Double-height living room with sofa, brick feature wall and painting, a bookshelf loft above and sunlight on the floor

Bedroom with wood wardrobe and toy shelf, opening through curtained glass doors to the stair landing and sunlit floor

The living room rises to double height, with a brick feature wall and a bookshelf loft overlooking it. That vertical generosity is rare in a house of this width, and it changes how the ground floor feels. Brick, stone and concrete are the project's listed materials. They give the interior a grounded, tactile base that balances the bright colors elsewhere.

Upstairs, a child's bedroom opens through curtained glass doors onto the stair landing. The curtain lets the family choose between privacy and connection. Most of the time, the room shares light and air with the central void rather than sealing itself off.

Even the Chores Get Daylight

Landing with a round-mirror vanity and terracotta floor tile beside a sunlit stair void, red railing and bookshelf

Laundry nook with stacked washer and dryer beside a round lattice window, looking toward the skylit stair and a bedroom beyond

Service functions usually end up in the darkest corner of a narrow house. Here, a round-mirror vanity on terracotta tile sits right beside the sunlit stair void. A laundry nook with a stacked washer and dryer looks out through a round lattice window toward the skylight.

This is a small detail, but it says a lot about the design priorities. The architects did not reserve daylight for the photogenic rooms. Routine domestic tasks share the same quality of light and air as the living spaces, which is what a house built around its center should deliver.

Plans and Drawings

Ground floor plan drawing of a narrow house showing garage, living room, kitchen and dining area, storage and a rear courtyard

First floor plan drawing of a narrow house with two bedrooms, a front balcony, a central stair, a reading space and voids

Second floor plan drawing showing a front terrace, altar, drying yard, laundry room, central stair, void and a rear bedroom with skylight

Roof plan drawing of a narrow house marking rooflights, concrete roof areas and a skylight, with a grid of panels at one end

Section A-A drawing with sun rays and blue airflow arrows moving through stacked rooms, stairs, a courtyard and a terrace, with a car in the garage

Elevation and section B-B drawings of a narrow multi-storey house, showing an arched upper window, a lattice screen and a patterned ground-floor gate

Cutaway axonometric drawing of a stacked house showing sun rays and airflow arrows, with plants on terraces and figures on the street beside a tree

The plans show a clear logic across three floors. The ground floor runs from garage to living room to kitchen and dining, then ends in a rear courtyard. The first floor holds two bedrooms, a front balcony and a reading space set around the voids. The second floor has a front terrace, an altar, a drying yard, laundry and a rear bedroom under its own skylight. The central stair stays fixed on every level as the organizing element.

Section A-A and the cutaway axonometric make the environmental intent explicit. Sun rays and airflow arrows move through the stacked rooms, connecting the front terrace, the stair void and the rear courtyard. The roof plan locates the rooflights and skylight that drive that system. Taken together, the drawings confirm that the stairwell functions as both a light well and a ventilation path.

Why This Project Matters

Vietnamese cities contain millions of tube houses, and many new ones are still built as dark boxes that rely on air conditioning. Tomi House shows a modest, repeatable alternative. Give up some floor area at the front and back, open a void through the middle, and make the stair the social heart of the home. None of this requires exotic technology. It requires a willingness to value light and air as highly as square meters.

We also appreciate that the house wears its color with confidence without letting it take over. The pink arch will attract attention, but the lasting lesson lies in the section. On a 62 m² footprint, The Studio has built a family home where a child reads on the landing in shifting sunlight. That is a meaningful standard for infill housing at this scale.

Tomi House by The Studio (lead architect Nguyễn Đức Thế; interior design Đặng Thị Thu Thủy), Quy Nhon, Vietnam. Area: 62 m². Completed: 2024. Photography: Lonton Studio.

About the Studio

The Studio

Share Your Own Work on uni.xyz

If projects like this are the kind of work you want to make, uni.xyz is a place to publish your own, find collaborators, and enter design competitions.