An aerial view of the Student Culture House in Ho Chi Minh City Photo: (VnExpress/Huu Khoa)

The culture house is at the Vietnam National University-HCMC, and serves both academic functions and as a venue for students to hold indoor and outdoor events.

With five floors, it has a 900-seat auditorium, libraries and large conference rooms for various club activities and sport fields outside.

The culture house, opened in October 2019, has a hexagonal shape to maximize natural light and breeze. It has a total area of 30,000 square meters and cost VND420 billion ($18 million) to build.

Nguyen Trung Kien was its main architect, and was partnered by Japan’s Shatoshi Shimizu, Yuriko Nitto and Jumpei Shirai and Vietnam’s Le Nguyen Huong Giang.

The awards are given in three categories, with the Realized Award given to projects that have actually been built within the last 10 years. They, instituted in 2006, seek to honor "remarkable projects that have the potential to inspire exciting questions about contemporary architectural discourse."