From workshop to practice: young OasisConcept architects explore how 15-minute urbanism, blue-green infrastructure and climate resilience can reinforce one another.

15 August 2026

OasisConcept at VGU's ‘15-Minute City Planning’ Workshop: From Proximity to Resilience

Title: Image 1. “15-Minute City Planning” workshop organised by the Sustainable Urban Development (SUD) programme at Vietnamese-German University (VGU). - Description: Workshop venue showing the “15-Minute City Planning” event screen and signage organised by SUD – VGU.

Image 1. “15-Minute City Planning” workshop organised by the Sustainable Urban Development (SUD) programme at Vietnamese-German University (VGU).

On 15 August 2026, young architects from OasisConcept took part in the “15-Minute City Planning” workshop organised by the Sustainable Urban Development (SUD) programme at Vietnamese-German University (VGU), held at the TOTO Information Center.

More than a one-day academic event, the workshop created an open environment for planners, architects and urbanists to return to a deceptively simple question: how might our cities change if everyday human needs truly became the starting point of planning?

According to SUD – VGU’s official workshop information, the programme followed a “Learning by Doing” format. Participants were introduced to the origins and key principles of the 15-Minute City, reviewed international examples including Paris, Melbourne and Milan, and explored Jan Gehl’s “Space → Life → Building” approach before identifying everyday needs, organising spatial layouts, mobility, green space and public facilities, and translating these ideas into physical neighbourhood models. Each group then presented its proposal as the “Mayor” of its own city, before the individual models were connected into a collaborative “15-Minute Super City”.

Title: Image 2. An open learning environment where theory, discussion and hands-on exploration came together. - Description: Workshop participants seated around tables during a presentation on sustainable urban development.

Image 2. An open learning environment where theory, discussion and hands-on exploration came together.

For OasisConcept, this question is closely connected to professional practice. Since 2011, the practice has worked across Architecture | Urbanism | Landscape | Strategy, from buildings and residential communities to integrated townships, waterfront developments and city-scale planning frameworks. Across these different contexts, one principle remains consistent: planning should not begin with form alone, but with an understanding of people, climate, water, landscape, accessibility and everyday urban life.

The 15-Minute City: beyond distance

The 15-Minute City promotes an urban structure in which essential daily needs – education, healthcare, shopping, work, recreation, social interaction and access to green space – can be reached conveniently within a short period of time by walking, cycling or other sustainable modes of travel.

But “15 minutes” should not be understood simply as a circle drawn on a map. More importantly, it is about accessibility time, functional diversity, continuous walking and cycling networks, public-space quality and equitable access for different groups of residents.

This is also why OasisConcept approaches urban planning as more than land-use allocation. The process begins with understanding context – climate, water, culture, regulation and development realities – before bringing together programme, mobility, landscape, phasing, identity and spatial structure into an integrated urban strategy.

Title: Supporting diagram. OasisConcept Integrated Approach – from context intelligence to strategy, integrated design and long-term place value. - Description: OasisConcept Integrated Approach diagram showing Understand, Define, Shape, Design and Deliver.

Supporting diagram. OasisConcept Integrated Approach – from context intelligence to strategy, integrated design and long-term place value.

From proximity to resilience

The workshop prompted the young OasisConcept team to ask an additional question: what happens to the 15-Minute City when urban places must simultaneously respond to flooding, extreme rainfall, urban heat and the growing impacts of climate change?

Building on the workshop experience, the team explored an “Adaptive 15-Minute City” lens. This was not presented as a formal model of the workshop, but as an OasisConcept design reflection emerging from the issues discussed during the programme.

A Blue–Green Network can form the ecological framework of the city: water bodies, landscape buffers, parks, trees and public spaces support everyday life while contributing to water retention and conveyance, urban cooling and climate adaptation. Within that framework, a 15-Minute Network can organise housing, schools, healthcare, retail and community facilities so that daily needs remain conveniently accessible by walking, cycling and other sustainable forms of mobility.

When these two layers come together, the idea of “15 minutes” can move beyond proximity towards resilience, and ultimately towards livability.

Title: Diagram 1. Adaptive 15-Minute City – an OasisConcept design reflection emerging from the workshop, integrating a Blue–Green Network with a 15-Minute Network to support proximity, resilience and livability. - Description: Adaptive 15-Minute City diagram integrating a Blue-Green Network and a 15-Minute Network to support proximity, resilience and livability.

Diagram 1. Adaptive 15-Minute City – an OasisConcept design reflection emerging from the workshop, integrating a Blue–Green Network with a 15-Minute Network to support proximity, resilience and livability.

Not a 15-minute formula, but adaptable principles

OasisConcept does not see the 15-Minute City as a model that should be copied unchanged from one place to another. A 185-hectare township, a development of more than 1,000 hectares and a city-scale planning framework require very different spatial responses. What can be transferred are the underlying principles: proximity, accessibility, mixed use, walkability, ecological networks and people-centred urbanism.

In the 185-hectare Hiep Hoa planning study, for example, OasisConcept has explored a Green Spine connected with Community Hearts, service-radius thinking, walking loops and eco-compounds – illustrating how landscape infrastructure gains real value when it is tied to daily services and everyday movement. At larger scales, including Phu Cuong Island and other township frameworks, the challenge shifts from a single neighbourhood to networks of complementary centres and communities.

These projects are not retroactively labelled as “15-Minute City” projects. The connection lies in method: organising accessibility, movement, landscape, public realm and everyday amenities as an integrated system rather than as separate layers.

In planning practice, these principles must ultimately become spatial structure: walking and cycling networks, nearby amenity clusters, public spaces, water systems and ecological corridors need to work together as one urban framework rather than as isolated layers.

Concept Plan. Illustrative spatial structure for an Adaptive 15-Minute City: a Blue–Green Spine provides the ecological framework, integrated with walking/cycling routes, residential clusters and nearby daily amenities. Conceptual only; not a specific project master plan.

Designing with climate, water and everyday life

Climate adaptation should not be something added after the master plan has already been designed. In OasisConcept’s approach, climate, water and landscape can become generators of urban form from the beginning.

A green corridor can also be a walking route. A park can function both as a community space and as part of a water-management system. An open space can support social interaction while improving ventilation and thermal comfort. A mixed-use cluster can reduce everyday travel while creating a more active public realm. This is where 15-Minute City thinking and climate-responsive urbanism can naturally converge.

Learning by doing

One of the most valuable aspects of the workshop was the rapid transition from discussion to physical making. By sketching, cutting, assembling models and presenting ideas directly, issues often represented through maps, indicators and diagrams became more tangible at the scale of people and everyday life.

For young OasisConcept architects, experiences like this are not separate from professional development. They reflect an approach to learning based on observation, research, questioning, experimentation and continuously testing new ideas against real project conditions.

Title: Image 3. Learning by Doing – translating planning principles into tangible spatial models. - Description: Workshop participants cutting, assembling and discussing physical planning models around a table.

Image 3. Learning by Doing – translating planning principles into tangible spatial models.

Title: Image 4. A workshop model used to test relationships between proximity, green space and urban structure. - Description: A hand-made workshop model showing green areas, water, routes and clustered spaces.

Image 4. A workshop model used to test relationships between proximity, green space and urban structure.

Connecting academia and practice

Following the workshop, SUD – VGU sent a thank-you message to participants and expressed its hope to continue the connection through future workshops, public lectures and related activities. OasisConcept values this kind of continuing dialogue.

Today’s urban challenges – climate change, mobility, housing, urban health, public-space quality and equitable accessibility – are increasingly difficult for any single discipline or organisation to address alone. Closer connections between research, education and professional practice therefore need to become a stronger part of the urban-development ecosystem.

For OasisConcept, engaging with universities, including Vietnamese-German University, is not simply about sharing established professional experience. It is also an opportunity to ask new questions with the next generation, test new approaches and collectively imagine better urban futures.

Title: Diagram 2. Academia – Practice – Community learning loop: academic knowledge → creative testing → professional application → new questions returning to academic exchange. - Description: Circular Academia – Practice – Community learning loop linking university workshops, young professionals testing ideas and professional application.

Diagram 2. Academia – Practice – Community learning loop: academic knowledge → creative testing → professional application → new questions returning to academic exchange.

In this sense, a workshop does not end when the event closes. Ideas tested in an academic setting can continue to be challenged in professional practice, while questions emerging from real projects can return to future research and education.

The workshop has concluded, but the question it raised remains open: if we begin designing a city around the 15 minutes of everyday life – while treating climate, water and nature as integral parts of urban structure – what kind of city might we create? That is a question OasisConcept intends to continue exploring, from research and academic exchange to real urban-planning practice.

Title: Image 5. A closing moment from the workshop, reflecting a shared spirit of learning, testing and exchange. - Description: Group photo of participants at the end of the 15-Minute City Planning workshop.