One of the poorest and most heavily damaged regions in Vietnam during the colonial and American wars, this strategic plan for a provincial capital in Northern Vietnam seeks to develop Thanh Hoa as an emerging ecological city and regional economic/institutional center through a coherent, sustainable development framework. The collaborative project goal through the local planning institute is to produce a comprehensive master plan for the provincial capital’s development to 500,000 people. The focus is to provide a new long-term, sustainable framework for the city to attain the goals of a Type 1 City—a designation based on quality of life indicators, demographics and economic criteria.
We worked with policy makers to ensure that success of economic development will be measured by the “quality” of the growth, including increased employment and fair distribution of resources. A key step was to develop the institutional and skills capacity in which to implement complex and sophisticated measures for successful economic strategic planning.This strong “institutional fabric” relies on a strong physical “urban fabric”, so we worked to ensure that the growing metropolitan area balances growth with environmental protection and best practice sustainable urban design strategies. These included the cooling a regenerated public realm, low-impact waterfront design strategies and integrated urban green infrastructure.
One of the first comprehensive metropolitan plans for a Vietnamese city by foreign consultants, this prototype plan will be used in collaboration with the UN Habitat and the Asia Development Bank to launch a national network of metropolitan plans for other large cities in Vietnam.
