Courtyard of apartments at 95 Pasteur Street in Ho Chi Minh City
Prior to the introduction of lower-cost air conditioning, buildings were often planned to maximize through-ventilation. An apartment or an office can be laid out in about six or seven meters in width, and then an open exterior corridor would be provided. This narrow a space allowed sufficient air to pass through. On a larger downtown plot of land, two wings of a U-shaped building could each have eight-meter wide wings with a courtyard in between. These courtyards, while unseen by most people, are still a design opportunity. Here in the 95 Pasteur Street Apartments in District One of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnamese architect René Nguyễn Khắc Schéou made the circular stairs the design element in 1949. [Photo © 2018 by Alexandre Garel]
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