Locatelli Partners imagines a cloud-like grocery store in Vietnam
The old meets the new in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City with Locatelli Partners' Le Square, a new grocery concept store enveloped in a semi-transparent mesh cladding

District 2 of Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City is one of the Southeast Asian urban hub’s fastest developing areas, currently making its way from being one of the poorest to one of the most modern.
Bridging old and new in this context is key to maintaining the city’s character and history, and this is the approach that Italian architecture firm Locatelli Partners took when designing its latest project there, French-style ‘epicerie’ grocery store complex Le Square.
The arched new spaces inside the old villa, which houses shops and a restaurant.
The scheme, which combines an existing colonial-style villa and an L-shaped new build, contains food shops and a restaurant on the ground level, with co-working spaces and offices upstairs.
A delicate mesh cladding connects the old and new parts in a semi-transparent ‘cloud’. Different colour tones on the cladding help distinguish various parts of the new construction, while Massimiliano Locatelli and his team opened up the interior of the old villa to create generous, arched new spaces, maintaining the original stone staircase at its heart.
As originally featured in the November 2019 issue of Wallpaper* (W*248) – on newsstands now
The complex’s delicate, cloud-like mesh cladding
INFORMATION
locatellipartners.com
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).
-
ALT Paris is a chic and fast-growing jewellery brand to know
The brand, which has just opened its second Paris boutique, has mastered the art of luxurious minimalism
-
Rediscover a classic midcentury hotel in Sydney
Fender Katsalidis leads a major renovation of the landmark Sofitel Sydney Wentworth hotel, pairing 1960s modernism with an elevated, Australian-minded reset
-
Haute Couture Week A/W 2025: what to expect
Five moments to look out for at Haute Couture Week A/W 2025 in Paris (starting Monday 7 July), from Glenn Martens’ debut for Maison Margiela to Demna’s Balenciaga swansong. Plus, ‘new beginnings’ from JW Anderson
-
A guide to Renzo Piano’s magic touch for balancing scale and craft in architecture
Prolific and innovative, Renzo Piano has earned a place among the 20th century's most important architects; we delve into his life and career in this ultimate guide to his work
-
How was Carlo Ratti’s ‘Intelligens’? Wallpaper* editors discuss the 19th Venice Biennale
Having visited ‘Intelligens’, the 19th Venice Biennale's main show by curator Carlo Ratti, the Wallpaper* editors discuss what they saw at the world's biggest global architecture festival
-
Discover architect Ico Parisi’s modernist sanctuaries on the banks of Lake Como
A string of sculptural sanctuaries by architect Ico Parisi on the banks of Lake Como helped cement the area as the heartland of Italian modernism; we explore his work in an article from the Wallpaper* archives
-
Explore this new Lake Como villa and its powerful, cinematic views
A Lake Como villa by Tuckey Design Studio celebrates the history of its site and references the surrounding landscape through materiality
-
2026 Olympic and Paralympic Torches: in Carlo Ratti's minimalism ‘the flame is the protagonist’
The 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Torches for the upcoming Milano Cortina Games have been revealed, designed by architect Carlo Ratti to highlight the Olympic flame
-
Anni Albers' weaving magic offers a delightful 2-in-1 modernist showcase in Milan
A Milan Design Week showcase of Anni Albers’ weaving work, brought to life by Dedar with the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation, brings visitors to modernist icon, the BBPR-designed Torre Velasca
-
Milan Design Week: ‘A Beat of Water’ highlights the power of the precious natural resource
‘A Beat of Water’ by BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group and Roca zooms in on water and its power – from natural element to valuable resource, touching on sustainability and consumption
-
This Milan Design Week installation invites you to tread barefoot inside a palazzo
At Palazzo Litta, Moscapartners and Byoung Cho launch a contemplative installation on the theme of migration