ODDO Architects Fits 96 m² TH+ House Onto 2.5-Metre Hanoi Plot

TH+ House by ODDO architects occupies a plot just 2.5 metres wide in Hanoi.

The 96-square-metre house, completed in 2025, sits within the Vietnamese capital's dense urban fabric. Access is possible only through a network of narrow pedestrian alleys. Informal vertical houses — the characteristic housing type of Hanoi — surround it on all sides.

The project's lead architects are Mai Lan Lan Chi Obtulovičová, Nguyen Duc Trung and Marek Obtulovic. Hoang Le photographed the completed building.

According to the architects, the extreme physical constraint of the site came paired with an equally defining social condition. In Hanoi's alley neighbourhoods, density operates on two levels.

"In Hanoi's alley neighbourhoods, density is not only a physical condition but also a social one," the architects state. "Shared tea, small businesses, children playing in the street, and spontaneous encounters create a strong sense of community within an otherwise highly compressed environment."

This social intensity shaped the design brief. The architects describe it as an important premise for TH+ House, treating the close-knit alley life around the site not as an obstacle but as a generator for the architectural response.

Hanoi's alleys have long produced a distinctive urban condition: tiny plots, informal construction and tight vertical accumulation. TH+ House engages that condition directly, packing a full domestic programme into a footprint that measures barely wider than a doorway.

The project adds to a growing body of work by local practices testing how contemporary housing can respond to the Vietnamese capital's compressed plots and strong street-level social life.