OLA HALE Restaurant & Bar by CHIO Architects

OLA Hale Restaurant and Bar is an adaptive reuse project that transforms a forgotten corner site in central Ho Chi Minh City into a lush, sensory escape inspired by Hawaiian landscapes. By amalgamating a single-storey shop and a three-storey residence, the project introduces a layered spatial journey where landscape, material, and memory intertwine.

At its heart is a carefully composed courtyard fronting the café. Enclosed by a circular breeze block wall and an off-form concrete surface, this green space creates a threshold between the bustling Hai Ba Trung Street and the calm interior beyond. The courtyard is not merely a passive buffer; it actively engages the public realm. The boundary wall folds and opens to orient the entrance toward the iconic Tan Dinh Church, establishing a strong axial relationship and extending an invitation into the shaded oasis within.

The ceiling design plays a pivotal role in extending the landscape indoors, inspired by the layered sensory experience of a Hawaiian beach—where sky, sea, sand, and vegetation overlap in rhythm and hue. Three distinct ceiling treatments, named “Ebbs,” “Tides,” and “Waves,” unfold across the building’s levels, each crafted from flowing teal linen suspended in organic patterns. These ceiling forms ripple gently overhead like wind-blown canopies, ocean currents, or tidal movements.

Beyond their aesthetic quality, these features are choreographed to mirror and extend the courtyard’s tropical vegetation into the interior spaces. Teal tones echo the deep greens of the planting palette, while the undulating forms of the linen ceiling panels mimic the natural sway of palms and foxtail ferns found throughout the building—especially in facade-mounted planters and rooftop edges. The interiors are thus imagined not as rooms, but as shaded forest clearings or beachside shelters, blurring the boundary between inside and out.

The planting strategy is also key to the project’s urban response. Recognizing the street’s hard, plant-less context, a new green facade is introduced. Custom planters are attached to timber-look fins aligned with the existing structural rhythm of the former residential block. These introduce a living layer to the building, reanimating the streetscape and offering a soft contrast to the concrete textures.

On upper levels, the spatial plan is carefully arranged to provide views back toward Tan Dinh Church. Frameless windows and strategically positioned rooftop seating areas offer guests unimpeded vistas, inviting reflection and visual rest within the layered landscape of the city.
OLA Hale demonstrates how a hospitality project can serve as a vehicle for landscape thinking—integrating planting, material, and atmosphere into a seamless whole. By reframing adaptive reuse as a landscape and sensory intervention, the project contributes to a broader discourse on how even small-scale urban infill sites can be transformed into immersive, green, and memorable public experiences.

• Project typology:

Restaurant

• All landscape architecture offices involved in the design of landscape:

CHIO Architects

• All architecture offices involved in the design:

CHIO Architects

• Other credits you need or wish to write:

OLA HALE RESTAURANT & BAR (Restaurant owner)
Baris Arch | DX (Vietnam)

Paul Phan (Photographer)

• Location of the project

270 Hai Bà Trưng, Phường Tân Định, Quận 1, Hồ Chí Minh 700000, Vietnam