Day 1 - Closing Keynote Speaker | Future Cities Symposium & Exhibition 2025

So today I would like to share about the context of climate change and then the challenge of major Asian city and solution in Vietnam. And the second part is meditation and mental health with I am good at better than architecture.

Okay, so. So.

The climate change is clear. But in Vietnam we are facing with really severe problem about pollution. Like Hanoi became the most polluted city in the world with Mumbai like maybe same with Beijing like 10 years, 20 years ago. And then also same with maybe Ho Chi Minh City or Mumbai or another New Delhi or Bangkok or Jakarta and so on. And then we have huge population in the city. Maybe Ho Chi Minh City. We have about 12 million people in the city. So.

So you can see the ratio of the greenery per person. Like Ho Chi Minh city, only 0.7 square meter per person. And Hanoi capital is almost same. So the problem is we are living in concrete jungle right now. And plus in Asia we very hot and humid and a lot of rain. So it like now I'm. I. I live about 40% of my time in Silicon Valley where is the best and maybe the weather. I mean in term of the weather. And then when we come back to humid situation, then we feel like very.

And humid and polluted air is really hard to leave. So. And then because a lot of people there. So traffic Sam will be very crazy situation now in Hanoi and in Ho Chi Minh City.

So our aim aim is how to change the current situation to, you know, if we build a new one or renovate them. We have to think of the solution how to leave. Not only put the green on the building, but to do the passive design each one by one. And we do a lot of master plan. We combine agriculture and recycling the water. And also the solar panel or the ventilation, I mean the.

So let me explain each project.

I came back from 2006 and at the beginning, I think at that moment there was not a lot of work for me to do. Then I started with many bamboo projects. But this is almost the first concrete project I did. Because it really narrow, only 4 meter wide and 20 meter depth. The house is a really typical house in Vietnam. But I started to do with design with this building this house for free. And then gradually I can have some more project then because the polluted city. So I We try to cover it by green and try to introduce the to the sunlight into the the space and also ventilation to the.

So now it become like a lot of building houses around and the. With the groom green roof and then green facade, green back. Yes. And we introduced the light and into the space. And the green is in tropical country. We. I think we. The double skin should not be glass air and glass. But it should be green air and glass. I think so. I think so. It helped better.

And then the space is. The house is narrow. But it still have. You know. Sunlight or wind or.

The space this master bedroom. And.

And then next not the. But this project is that we design.

We won the competition. But in reality, at that moment in Vietnam. It was. It was hard to convince them to build this kind of. And then we submit another project. And then we won the competition. And then at the last moment we. We. We tell them how about this one? And then they. They.

Because I think if we show this at the beginning, they will reject. I think so. So because this only there the kindergarten for the factory workers. You know, the Po Chen group. You can see there.

About 23,000 women working for the shoe factories. So then their children can come here to learn then because the low budgets. So we try. Of course, the building is not.

We didn't have the budget for the air conditioning. So the green facade for the farming. And also the.

Ventilation. And we use the water there to do the farming system on rooftop. And then their parents can come and blend the vegetable for the children to enjoy. Because I think with the worker salary they can.

It hard for them to.

Have a. You know, it can help them to have more vegetable. And the children can enjoy the process of Agrippa culture. And this contain some courtyards. And connect the courtyards together. And due to the space had the limitation of space. So that. Why we maximize the space into the roof and back to. Back to the courtyards again. And we try to do each project like a small park for the city. Adding for.

And then if we do so other Vietnamese architect. They also.

Try to do the same thing. Then gradually the city become better. So this is a project we designed for the depressed client. So her husband has severe depression. So we designed the most hard to live in the house. Because the. We design each box independently. And then if he want to go to the restroom, he has to go out. Because some of depressed people they tend to stay in the room without going out. So. But you need to go out for restroom, for food, for dough. And then.

So but it helped them well. Because in. In the middle concrete jungle. Suddenly we have the. The pot of the tree over there. And like this is a bamboo formwork concrete. And then from outside we see look like a concrete one. But inside open. And the ficus tree is growing fast to cover the Garden. And we have many courtyards in the middle of the house. Then it opened to here. And another one is also I think in Asia in our context and in America is totally different. Because the site of the building is too small. It's about less than basically in Vietnam less than 100 square meter.

And then this house is pretty big. Is about 200 square meter. And then we design it like.

Many garden in many level. So it had the connecting from everywhere. Because.

There are two sun in this home. But they are addicted to the game. So that's why we design the houses is connecting everywhere we can see through.

See through. Of course, if you have. And then you can see many level of the garden. And then many level of the tree. And then the wind the flow and air. And. Yeah. And the plan is really simple. We put everything here. And then the space is connecting through the garden. So another project is the hotel in Da Nang.

Is like in the middle of concrete jungle. We try to put some green. And then in the same way is only 700 square meter. But they require about 153 rooms for. For the hotel it a lot. Then we try to do something.

Simple, easy. But like it has some differences from other building. And this project is the house next to the next to the park. So we try to introduce the parks into the house like this one. And then the park here we continue with the garden into the house and up to the. And another really small house is. I think it's about less than 4 meter wide and about.

But we cover is by the green system. The tree green system. And also this work quite well. Because there are many small courtyards in the middle of the house. So that why it make different air pressure. So it create the wind inside. I like the wind system. Like back here. You can see the though small courtyards in the middle of the house. And we cover it by the. The. Yeah. Here is also the web somewhere like here. And then it introduce the like and make the different. You can see the.

Somewhere. Yeah. And it cover.

Make living very well with the hot sunlight in the Southeast Asia.

So and then this is my office.

In Ho Chi Minh City. So since we are architects. So we try to save costs out for our building. Of course. So we just build a concrete frame and make the hanging system outside does it. And then we install the very simple glass. And then we hide the frame up and down of the floor. And we even pouring the concrete to be floor to hard to. To be easy for finishing. Not no more finishing. So that why it. But you can see here the hanging system outside the big part like this become a beam to hang the next. And here is the another big post. And then we hang down like this way it separately from the building. So we just do the concrete frame and hang the greenery system outside. So this one.

Another house in Da Nang. So again we try to introduce the nature.

To the house. And then the void here and huge three pot in and introduce the light through the tree. And the.

This box. This box pop out from there. And then we introduce the pool and the fish here. And it will pump up here for watering. And then this go down again fish here. And then this make the very good cooling system and ecological system for the house. And you can see the boxes pop out from there. And then this like this space. And the pool and the pool under the boxes.

And the connecting horizontally and vertically for the house. And you can see the open space from inside and outside. The light into. And then the combination of material. So when I go to the US and then I realized that we cannot do some building like this in the country with the.

High labor costs. Right. But it's super expensive. So that what we do in.

So another project in Northern Vietnam, which is very hot and humid area.

So I would think is we. We put the box in the middle of the big tree. Because we plant some type of tree that can grow big. And then we connect it by concrete slab. The concept is quite easy, simple thing. And.

And if it's super hot. So that why I we try to make the facade like the shadow for the. The surface itself. And also the shadow from tree the concrete slab. And the water pond in the middle of the building to make a cooling system. And you can see the surface of the building is a little bit.

Good shade for themselves. For the walls themselves. And another house in the northern Vietnam too.

This system is this a pretty bigger area. So we try to make the circle for the double skin outside the concrete wall. And the middle air space and inside space. And with the greenery outside. And we frame the the landscape around by the concrete there. And also introduce the greenery in the middle space.

And the space inside the bathroom.

So.

And another project is a hotel.

Here.

We we do the master plan here in Hoi An. And then they run the business quite well. It all sold out. And then we convinced them. So let us do something.

There is a five star hotel there. So let us do something different. And then they are the construction company. The owner is sell. And then they have they build a lot of bridge Bridge in Vietnam. Then we try to convince them to do some concrete building like this. And make the Hoi an they have the roof landscape is moving. And then we take that adn to put in the the building. Make the this building not a moving roof but moving box.

And then it going to be done soon.

And this the entrance space with the bamboo form work concrete the room. And now is it doing. They do the bamboo farmwork concrete for the entrance entrance. And.

Another house is after the COVID We think about much about the. You know, in Singapore maybe everywhere we use the air conditioner. But.

What I really don't don't like. Because I.

Used to live in the forest for about three years to meditate in Myanmar. Then no almost living in the nature even hot, even cold or like that. So we designed this house.

This the wind tower to catch the wind. And then each room they have it on the. For example, this room is with the wind tower and the courtyards behind. And the wind from here. And then they catch it because wind from here. So here is really negative pressure compared to this is blast pressure. So it automatically the wind go down to back. Yes. So that why we designed many small. Yeah hot. Yes for the each room and back again. You can take a look. This one is. They catch the air and go down to the.

Courtyards behind. So it always have the air pressure gap in the room. And then that white cat the wind too. So.

And then this client they have the. They do like machinery. They have a lot of good.

Machine to dig the the stone to make the real stone tower for the wind catcher.

And then this space for us like here the wind tower. And they catch the wind go and then backyard with do it negative pressure. Then that why it helped to. And then the meditation room the bathroom. Here he is like the wind come and.

And another factory. The waste to energy plant. The burning the the garbage to make the electric city. So. Oh.

This now is under construction right now. And this one is.

The. They. They. They own the concrete.

Company. So they manufacture many concrete part for the to to sell that why we we try to design it local.

By design the building itself the surface like the to the part. And then just put it on to be a building. So. And then you can see the bougainville is a very easy flower to grow. Sorry. Sorry. What is it?

So.

We.

What is it?

Okay, so.

Let me go through a little bit faster.

And then the concrete part is like this. We design it column. And then we design each part to manufacturing and put on the column. And then we make the COVID of the building easily by the part to put on even.

So.

Let me explain that later. And then we have the building like this. And the roof is a steel roof, normal steel roof with.

Solar panel on that. And we introduced fuse bamboo project. What we do this the first pure bamboo structure. So I work with the worker. And then.

And then.

We make the first frame. It would take about few days. And then we copy them for many one. And finally here we reuse all the other parts of bamboo to make the furniture. And then the space inside like this. And another project in Northern Vietnam is bamboo wings.

So is the wing with the pure bamboo structure here. From here to here is 12 meter. And then we make a tension on top of that within two head. We make a head for a top of bamboo. And we make a wire from there and put the tension up to have this. Of course it's moving. And then we.

Sorry. So we fix this by wire. So it's about. This one is in Northern Vietnam too is about more than 1000 square meter. This dome about more than 15 meter high. So the space inside by bamboo.

And each frame is like this.

So.

Another one is welcome center in Southern Vietnam. And then we make two dome with different function inside. And like a core and the grid system outside. And the brace in the middle of the grid system. And we need to. Because it cantilever out. So we need the hanging system. And this is very complicated. The detail for the. For the structure. And. And then you can see here the brace go through the. And then here is of course falling down. And then we had the hanging system into the top of this to make the structure work like this way. So.

The brace you can see some breaths through the building. And when you go inside you feel the light, the wind, the freeze wind, air around.

Here'S another dome. So another bamboo structure for the community house in the middle of Vietnam. So the unit system not here, not the decorative bamboo surface, but it support the horizontal structure system like this way.

So.

Some project in China, this one in. In Siamen China.

Another one is just recently done. Recently.

We design whole master plan and the community house here.

It's a really interesting system.

Inside. And then the joint is harder than other what I did. And then the surface. And another project in China too, this by HP cell, straight bamboo. But it looked like it burning bending bamboo.

The HP cell.

So this main part.

Okay.

So I was born.

Here in the north and South Vietnam. And then I had.

Severe ptsd. The trauma from the war like Bakmut in Ukraine right now because the northern Vietnam and then America dropped a lot of bomb clutter bomb. And everywhere everything is shooting be concentrated on this area to stop the north army coming. So I was born there after one year of the war. So.

Because of that I had a big trauma because many colleagues and peers died because clutter bomb of America dropped were there. And because it was poor. So I could go to the school, but other kids cannot go. They try to bully me so to stop me to go to school. So it was hard time. And it make me had like hidden depression later for many years.

So but I started to meditate in 2010 12. And then gradually I know about the.

Meditation can help me to be better, to reduce the anger, to reduce the suffering in my. My. My heart. It go through with me about.

40 years. It's about 40 years. So and then I start to meditate like 10 hours 10 days course until 2016. It's about four years. And then in 2017 I started to go to follow him to Myanmar to meditate about 1,000 days in the forest. And then.

There is a Pao forest monastery in in Myanmar.

There are no bill there because everything for free living fee. No electric bill, no nothing. Then we can concentrate only for meditation. So but my job was meditate whole day, whole night except for sleep. And then within maybe few weeks or few months my hidden depression gone. Because I even don't know when but it gone. And then I feel like the Buddhist knowledge is really profound. And then I start to think about staying there for a long time. At the beginning, I think maybe one month, two months, four months maximum. But finally it ended up like three years. So.

So only in the tall mountain. And then I live there for only for meditation. So only mindful on the breath or any meditation object. So it mindfulness later is mindful on meditation object or mindful on the breath can help it opposite way with depression with wandering mind. And then we keep being mindful and then suddenly it go away.

So later on I came back to Vietnam in 2020 Covid start and then a lot of depressed and anxious people around. And I try to help them with the simple meditation. And it was quite easy to help them to be free from the symptom. I think within three or four weeks only with simple being mindful on the body. Then they can be free from the symptom. And then later on I started to do meditation classes for people around the world through Zoom. Through zoom. And.

I go to the US to teach at some university like Yale. University or University of Pennsylvania. But really interesting job is being visiting professor in Taipei University to teach about meditation and mental health to help the student to overcome their depression and anxiety disorder or bipolar disorder or even the schizophrenia. So I think that in for the modern, modern medicine it's quite hard to help them because if we have problem as stomach and then we just open it and make it again. But for the mind, even you cut your brain, you don't know.

What people think you know. So so but the in more than 2500 years ago, Buddha taught us how to overcome that easily. It in reality it almost nearly 95% people in my classes will be free from the symptom fast within around 1, 2, 3, 4 weeks. Not, not very long because we have one class in the morning and one class in the evening. So they can practice being mindful like about 45 minutes in the morning, 45 minutes at night and they do 3 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes, 10 minutes during the day. And then the time as much as you are being mindful then the depression or anxiety disorder doesn't like that they go because it's opposite way. When our mind is wandering and we are mindful is the opposite way. So.

I always use like.

Mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of the breath and the loving kindness meditation which is metta. Loving kindness meditation work very well with the people with homo like me because.

It helps us to face with the trauma in the mindful stage so that why we can like some lady they are abused. So if they recall that movement and like sighting in their mind, may I be free from the mental suffering. Of course you recall it again and again many times in your mind it make you make them very hard to face with. But because in mindful state we do that and we back to be mindful on the body for a few minutes and back again with the trauma.

The incident make us the trauma and then it going back again and again. And then within I think about 10 days we can be free from the trauma then. That's why I had severe trauma when I was young. But my loving kindness helped me very well. And the one.

Symptom of the.

Depressed and anxious people is.

A lot of worry, a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety in their mind. So being mindful on the body is quite easy for them to do later on we can do it together about five minutes and then combine with.

Mindfulness on the breath of the breast. And then.

I mean first week about 30% of people will be free from the symptom about two weeks is about 60 and three weeks is almost 90% or even 99% of people will be free from the symptom. Why? You will ask me why? Because normally out my mind your mind and go somewhere some project, some city problem, some architecture, children go to school tomorrow meeting or something like that. We never had. We almost never have the movement your mind on your body.

That why make us really severe.

Depression or anxiety or worry. But at my class I can help them to be mindful. 45 minutes, which is super long for even for the normal.

People. So. But twice a day. And then they can practice for themselves. And then no room for. For depression or anxiety. Depression or anxiety because too long being mindful. So should we do together for. For about five minutes. So then we. We. We do together, huh? So sit straight, please.

So close your eyes.

Can you feel your bottom touch the chair? You feel it?

Can you feel your back to touch the chair right now? The back.

How about your left leg to touch floor? Left leg. Feel it?

Right leg. Can you feel it?

Left hand. Can you move your left hand to feel it? Left hand? Yeah.

Right hand.

Back. Can you feel your back right now? Back.

Left leg.

Right leg.

You feel your head. If you cannot feel, you can touch your hand to your head. Can you plus please put your hand to your head please. Head. Yeah.

Face.

Face. Can you feel your face right now? Face.

Forehead.

Now your mind on your forehead. Forehead. Head. You feel the head right now Put your hand there. Head.

Face.

Yeah.

Neck. You feel it? Neck.

Back.

Back. You feel your back right now? Back.

Bottom. Your bottom is touching the chair. Bottom.

Left hand.

You can feel your left hand right now. Right hand.

Left leg.

Right leg.

Belly. You can touch your belly to feel it. To be mindful on the belly. Belly.

Neck.

Face.

Be mindful on your face. Face.

Forehead.

Forehead.

Head.

Be mindful on your head. Face.

Back. You feel it back.

Left leg.

Right leg.

Belly.

Left hand.

Right hand.

Fingers. Your fingers. You can move your finger to feel it. Fingers.

Face.

Head.

Forehead. Can you feel your forehead right now? Forehead.

At.

Your eyes. Your eyes.

And open your eyes.

Feel fresh. Good. Yeah. If we continue to do that about two hours per day. No room for depression.

Really? So that's why I told you it's easy to be free from the depression symptom. Why? Because being mindful is opposite with them. And then our mind all the way go somewhere. So I am myself when I go to the forest, being mindful whole day, whole night. Except for sleeping. When I walk like 10, 10 meter. Trying to be mindful on the Breast from here to there and from here to there, from here to there for whole day and then 16 meditation. And suddenly when I because being mindful for whole day. So I don't know when, but the depression gone. And I could meditate maybe 10 hours per day for continuously. Then.

Later on I have luckily I could develop the full absorption, concentration.

I was ready for the company to be bankruptcy. Because I go to the forest. Of course no one want to work with me. But when there the staff also leave the company.

But in reality, when the opposite way, When I meditate eight to 10 hours per day and then work within 30 minutes, the idea come out quite easy.

Quite easy. And then I just use a very simple phone without Internet. And I keep explaining them what I'm thinking in my mind. And they don't have the right to call me back. I call them.

You know, I just explain them and then they do it. But it went well during three years when I was in the forest. So that's why. Yeah. And later on I know about the benefit of meditation. Even when we are 60, if we being practice meditation for about 45 minutes. 45 minutes per day. After two months, three months, four months, our brain will be young, like.

25 years old. So if you want your brain to be 25 years old, it still have chance to be to do like that by practicing meditation. So. And another issue is our.

Prefrontal cortex gray matter here is developed fast. And the hippocampus, the memory and learning center gray matter there also increase. And luckily the part we want to be small at the fear center, the amygdala is going to be smaller then that's why we are more brave compared to ourselves. So why don't we meditate? Thank you very much.