The SUA project has been able to apply technologies and methods to three different buildings in Hanoi over the period 2022-2025, generating data that will be synthesised at the end of the project and fully incorporated into the transfer model to show potential for optimisation in the development of smart urban areas.
Some of the technologies will be used for the first time in Vietnam, allowing studies to be conducted in the subtropical climate, as well as demonstrating their practical application on site in real buildings.
The holistic approach to developing such systems at the building level allows for a rethinking of traditional approaches and offers, albeit at an early stage, a potential for expansion that has so far only been partially applied to high-rise buildings and urban neighbourhoods in megacities.
The schematic diagram below illustrates the scaling process over the course of the project. The project started with the big vision of Tonkin 2, scaled down sub-objectives of the project to a smaller building, TestBed 01, transferred the fully developed objectives to the TestBed 02 building based on the experience gained, and finally applied them again to Tonkin 2. The final results will be presented in a separate transfer model.
Down below more information about TestBed 01 are available.
Please follow the three links below that takes you to the different test sites.
Commencing its operational phase in September 2022, the SUA project initially exhibited a pronounced emphasis on a technological vector, meticulously specifying and delimiting its anticipated objectives to ensure robust technical implementation. The holistic paradigm adopted early in the project lifecycle engendered a level of complexity unprecedented in prior deployments, presenting both cultural and technical impediments. However, by the terminal conference in May 2025, a resolution of these challenges was achieved. The temporal evolution of the three-year project is visually represented by the Sankey diagram.
The SUA project team conceptualizes the research endeavor as an opportunity to understand urban quarters, particularly their constituent high-rise buildings, as integral organisms within the city—analogous to human biological systems. This framework aims to optimize building culture, conserve resources, and mitigate the formation of urban heat islands in the long term, thereby enhancing the quality of life within urban districts and elevating overall living standards. Next-generation high-rise structures can be interpreted as carbon dioxide sinks, capable of both consuming necessary resources and reintegrating certain elements back into the urban ecosystem.
Vision: MegaCity: ‘Given Hanoi's affiliation with the C40 global network since 2007 and Ho Chi Minh City's since 2009, it is logical to adopt a holistic and active understanding of urban quarters and new real estate developments. High-rise structures within these urban districts and across the city, particularly in redevelopment initiatives, should function as distributive building blocks within the urban fabric. The methodologies of Mixed-Use Development and Transit-Oriented Development can serve as directives to more clearly define nodes and shorten distances, thereby fostering the creation of the 15-minute walkable city. Furthermore, high-rise buildings can evolve into vertical heat sinks, where functionalities intermingle and find their place across the vertical strata of the city, counteracting the prevailing trend of simplified, mono-functional typologies such as purely office, commercial, or residential towers. Positive impacts on residents and the immediate surroundings are anticipated, as cultural elements of the society are integrally addressed.
