When Quality of Life Becomes the New Measure of Urban Development
“Design is no longer measured by visual appeal or the number of products, but by the quality of life and the level of trust that a project brings to the community.”
Against the backdrop of Vietnam’s real estate market undergoing significant cycles of adjustment, design decisions are increasingly being challenged to answer longer-term questions: How will this space operate? What kind of community will emerge? And what quality of life will be created after years of use? According to architect Thien Duong, 2026 will mark an important shift, as design is no longer evaluated primarily through images or the number of products delivered, but through quality of life, climate adaptability, and the level of trust a project creates within the community.
Design is moving away from quantity-driven development toward long-term value
Looking at the broader picture, architect Thien Duong believes that the strong wave of tourism and resort development in recent years has had a positive ripple effect on Vietnam’s built environment. Coastal resorts and large-scale hospitality developments are quietly raising the standards for design quality, landscape integration, and user experience, thereby creating higher expectations for other forms of development.
At the same time, as the housing market gradually recovers after a period of stagnation, the question is no longer simply “how many apartments can we build?” but rather “what kind of communities are we creating?” According to him, the greatest difference between developers lies in their vision: between short-term speculative development and a long-term strategy for creating value. Well-managed projects with high-quality living environments and sustainable operations will build market trust and, over time, consistently outperform opportunistic development models.
In Vietnam’s high-density urban context, elements once considered “secondary” - such as natural daylight, cross ventilation, shared community spaces, and the ability to adapt to heat and flooding - are becoming core criteria of quality of life. This is not merely a design issue, but a matter of urban responsibility.
Trust between developers and architects is shaping design quality
According to architect Thien Duong, one of the factors that most strongly influences design quality today lies not in the brief itself, but in the developer’s internal management structure. Many projects have strong in-house design management teams, which can provide advantages in risk control, but may also create the risk of turning the design process into a series of overly “micro-managed” decisions.
When decisions are intervened in too deeply at the detail level, the creative process can become reactive, inconsistent, and less innovative. Rather than controlling every line and detail, he believes developers should invest more in the partner-selection stage: carefully assessing the capabilities, thinking, and experience of architects, and then giving them the professional authority to lead the design.
Within this approach, the in-house design management team should focus on establishing business objectives, managing risks, and ensuring coordination between departments - rather than replacing the creative role of the design consultant. When trust is placed in the right hands, projects can operate more coherently, allowing architecture, interior design, and landscape solutions to fully realize their collective value.
Featured Projects by:
Arch. THIEN DUONG + GroupGSA
Vietnamese cities have an opportunity to define their identity through their own living context
From the perspective of context, architect Thien Duong believes Vietnam possesses highly distinctive opportunities that have yet to be fully explored. One of them lies in the relationship between rapid urbanization and the vibrant culture of street life. Many current developments still tend to “turn their backs on the street,” creating enclosed development blocks that are disconnected from their surrounding communities.
Meanwhile, alleys, sidewalks, and semi-public spaces are precisely where the identity of Vietnamese cities is formed. Designing residential, mixed-use, or hospitality projects that can support and resonate with street life - rather than eliminate it - represents a major opportunity that remains largely untapped.
Another opportunity lies in climate-responsive design. With its long coastline, diverse climate conditions, and challenging environmental context, Vietnam has enormous potential to develop contemporary architectural models that respond intelligently to monsoon winds, humidity, sea salt, and high temperatures, rather than mechanically applying international “styles” as superficial expressions. According to him, design can only be truly sustainable when architecture, interiors, and landscape are understood as one integrated whole, collectively telling a continuous spatial story.
Architect Thien Duong is currently the Managing Director of GroupGSA Vietnam, an Australian architecture practice with more than 45 years of global experience. He is a Chartered Member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), Chairman of the Jury for the Vietnam Property Awards and Asia Property Awards, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Vietnam Green Building Council. With more than 25 years of international experience, he has led major projects across education, mixed-use developments, commercial developments, hotels and resorts, and high-end residential projects in Vietnam and internationally.
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GroupGSA Vietnam
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