Cheering, Hanoi, Vietnam

Vietnamese firm H&P Architects have completed an impressive, complex design for a restaurant and beer hall in downtown Hanoi, drawing inspiration from the graceful flora that punctuates the city’s leafy streets. Taking a steel framework from a previously abandoned project, the designers have welded the existing shell and encased interlocking timber pipes to form beams that are stacked at perpendicular angles, creating a vertiginous root-like interior. A roof-mounted rainwater vaporizer keeps the space cool, while plants and full-length windows that look onto the street outside, blur the boundary between interior and exterior. The kitchen offers a mixture of German-style entrees as well as local favourites, while an adjoining outdoor beer garden allows diners to enjoy the city’s famously balmy dusks with a wide selection of bottled European and Vietnamese brews.