Ly Thuong Kiet Street Urban Design Project

The Urban Design Project for Ly Thuong Kiet Street explores the connection between three key elements: Culture – Community Activities – and Community Connectivity, through the renovation of sidewalk spaces along the street into public activity areas. The project aims to enhance urban amenities and greenery, restructure sidewalks to suit the sidewalk economy model, and express cultural values through pavement patterns, spatial forms, especially around public buildings and heritage structures of significant architectural and historical value along the street.

As a characteristic area located in the southern Old Quarter of Hoan Kiem Lake – the center of Hanoi, where large open spaces are lacking, the proposal focuses on improving existing spaces, removing or lowering private fences to increase spatial openness, integrating greenery inside building compounds and along the street to strengthen the overall landscape. It also includes upgrading traffic markings, integrating bus stops with public bike stations and information points.

The existing disordered building façades are regulated in accordance with upper-level planning, creating architectural highlights at intersections, and defining spaces for sidewalk-based economic activities in front of individual business households — a very distinctive urban and cultural characteristic of Vietnam.

The urban design proposal for Ly Thuong Kiet Street provides comprehensive renovation solutions, combining various types of public amenities and suitable greenery choices, while improving guidance and accessibility spaces for people with disabilities. The sidewalks, carriageways, and planting areas are designed to support multi-functional and flexible uses throughout the day, responding to the diversity of functions along the street — including public institutions (offices, headquarters, etc.), diplomatic buildings (embassies), service facilities (hotels, offices), residential blocks, and heritage sites of cultural and historical value.

Ultimately, the project aims to develop a design philosophy in which the street itself expresses cultural values through community activities, enhances social connectivity, and where this very connectivity, in turn, contributes to the preservation of the street’s cultural identity.