Visions for the Greater Hanoi 7. Conclusion

Some main questions and comments based on the visions:
1. The different visions can be made richer by more overlapping. Where are strong points of combination? An example of this approach is the combination of water and green networks, that together counterbalance major infrastructure, to filter the air and water from pollution and set the condition for urbanization through adaptation of the landscape.

2. Which current spatial patterns can be the starting point, which have a potential to undergo a metamorphosis?

3. How can introduced structures anticipate and accommodate urban development without collapsing or vanishing? Think about ‘soft’ structures like lakes, forests and wetlands that have disappeared from the city. Would they rather be able to structure? Or are they contradicting each other when combined radically?

4. Is it possible to imagine a future for the city, in which design breaks down the system of rings and radials and integrates the existing city in a grid like network, delineated in the west by the Ho Chi Minh highway and in the east by highway no. 1?

5. Can this network also be combined with an equal, parallel network of mountains, rivers, wetlands and forests? Can nature, rather than being wild and inaccessible, have a ‘gardeners logic,’ a green element that is controlled by man and brings quality to the city? Is the separation between nature and man, like a landscape ecologist would prefer, to black and white?

6. Or could there be large, natural element comparable to the mountains in Rio de Janeiro or Cape Town that gives character and definition to the city? Could that be the mountains, the rivers, or is it shaped by a new figure of green space?