The FV Hospital is the first general hospital built in Vietnam according to international standards. Completed in 2003, it is also the first large-scale AW² project undertaken abroad. The project was initiated and overseen by a team of French doctors and financed by development banks. It is located south of the Saigon River on a 5-hectare site. Due to site constraints, the hospital was designed as a compact complex of buildings organised into three main entities: the main building with the surgical hospital, the clinic offering nuclear medicine and ophthalmology, and staff residences. The main building houses all the consultation departments, surgical facilities (9 operating theatres), an intensive care unit, a paediatric special care unit, radiotherapy, imaging, and laboratory departments, an emergency room, and a day clinic. Its shape and layout reflect a thorough analysis of staff and patient circulation and efficiently reduces the distance between departments.

The hospital’s granite façade and the straight line of vertical windows reinforce the monolithic effect. Patients’ rooms are located in a dedicated building above the podium. The suspended volume is accentuated by the glass façade of the middle floor where the administrative offices are situated, and by the cantilevers on either side. The rooftop of the podium is designed to serve as a public garden for both patients and personnel. The clinic, which is connected to the main building by a covered passageway, houses the department of nuclear medicine and the ophthalmology clinic. All the interior areas have been composed and custom-designed using local techniques and resources to create a place that is comfortable, elegant, and not overly ‘medicalised’. Since its completion, the project has continued to evolve and has expanded to include housing units and a consultation building designed by AW².