Centred around the ancient and intricate agricultural delta in the Hanoi region, the territory of Northern Vietnam has long been affected by war and later by political isolation and repression. The Doi Moi reforms of the 1980s, aimed at a “socialist-oriented market economy”, have exposed this territory of more than twenty million inhabitants to the forces of globalisation. The privatisation of public assets, including the land, and the spread of private entrepreneurship led to relentless struggles over the control of the territory and its resources. The ETH Studio Basel worked in Hanoi together with students from the Hanoi University of Engineering and Technology.