On our second full day of being in Hanoi, we were all able to visit VinUniversity. The university is located outside of the downtown area in a neighborhood called Ocean Park 1. VinUniversity was designed, built, and operated by a company called VinGroup, a conglomeration of 16 companies. In their portfolio they own companies that can be broken down into technology and industry, real estate and services, and social enterprises. They developed all of Ocean Park 1, along with 2 other massive development projects outside of the downtown area of Hanoi, located near highways to provide easy access to all residents and guests. Each development had an assortment of shops, apartment complexes, houses, pools, and the VinUniversity!

When first arriving to the campus, we were first able to see the Ocean Park development that was recently constructed. There were beautiful villas to apartment complexes that were still being built. Upon seeing the campus from the bus, a lot of us were blown away from the architecture as it was all neoclassical. We had seen a photo or two in one of our weekly semester meetings but seeing it up close was surely a sight. I was excited to go inside the buildings and the campus in general, as I did not know what to expect as it is a university owned by a private company. For universities I have been to, they are all public or private, but not owned by a company. A US equivalent would be like going to a Google University or Apple University.

We first got off at the main administration building, and we were all very impressed by how it looked. I immediately went behind the bus and saw the steps that lead up to the building and was shocked how big the area was. We were led into the building and everything appeared to have nice finishes. There was even this model of the campus they had on display which allowed us to see the layout of the buildings and how many there were. We were then shown a presentation by a student of VinUniveristy on the campus, which was followed by a presentation by representatives from the VinGroup and VinUniversity who were involved in the construction of the building and now its maintenance. The highlight of this presentation was them explaining the schedule of the project and how it was built. The entire campus is fully built and has been open for a few years now, so being able to learn more about the logistics of construction certainly intrigued us. We were amazed to learn that all 14 facilities were built in 14 months from start to finish for only $85 million dollars! There are some UIUC campus buildings that cost more and were built within the last decade. We were able to ask a lot of questions and they asked us a question as they wanted to see what we thought.

Construction started in November of 2018 and handover was slated for January 2020 so that the University could hold its first convocation. By June 2019 a lot of construction was already completed, including the construction of the auditorium. By August, they had redesigned the auditorium and deconstructed it. The building still had to be completed in 3 months, but they were able to manage it. In addition, there was a rose garden that had a redesign finished in December 2019, which gave the project team only a month to complete it, which was also executed. Shifts ran 24/7, which helped the schedule but learning about how the entire campus we were on was completed in 14 months was an absurd concept to all of us.

After the visitation of the construction of a nearby pavilion, we had lunch in the school cafeteria. There were many options for us to choose from, and I got the steamed rice with radish braised meat. It was quite nice, and different from the cafeterias at UIUC.

From there we were able to see the auditorium that we learned so much about. It was impressive to see the size and detail of the building up close, with the knowledge that it was built in 3 months. There were 1500 seats in the auditorium and had a nice layout, stage, and quality of seats.

We then went to the student union were many people bought coffee and snacks, and then we went on a walking tour of the university. Each campus building is assigned a letter, followed by the word “block”, so the main administration building we were in was I block. This was very much how the UIUC logo is the Block I^TM. We went to the H block building to see some lab spaces. On the walls of the building there were some research posters, and some even that were created in collaboration with UIUC! There was even a research lab that was called the VinUni-Illinois Smart Health Center. A researcher came out to tell us that the lab was created to find ways to advance healthcare so that the result would be lower costs for patients. We saw a health care lab and saw real cadavers of full humans. We did not interact with them, but it was nice to see as I personally had never seen a cadaver of a full body and Alfredo did not even know what a cadaver was. This was followed by us being able to see a computer lab and some classrooms where a lot of classes were held. The facilities were very nice, and I would not mind having classes in these spaces.

Their computer lab was the first place where the building managers mentioned that the facilities on campus were slowly sinking. This made sense as the plot of land the university was built on was originally a rice field, which had 2-3 meters of sand put on top of it. After noticing this, a lot of us were vigilant of the cracks and slopes on the ground floor of the buildings and exteriors. In some places the surface had depressed 50 cm! The sloping was the most noticeable outside, where the sidewalks and landscapes that were built on top of sand would slope upwards or have shear drops from the buildings that were built on top of foundations. There are so many places where there are cracks and slopes which must be repaired soon, which I wonder how much will cost as the repairs have to be quite extensive.

The last place we went to was the rose garden, which was such a nice place! There were so many flowers and if I went to school at VinUniversity I could see myself coming here often. We took many photos here and someone even was given a flower from one of the gardeners. From that, our University tour ended and got ready to go to the VinSchool.

Blog written by Alejandro Fernandez