Most of the wood you see in Thiên Ý has lived two lives.
The frame of Birds House came from a coastal fishing village two hours north of Huế — a 19th-century home dismantled, every beam numbered, every joint catalogued, then reassembled by the same family of carpenters who took it apart. The Beasts House was relocated from a rice-farming hamlet on the other side of the Perfume River. The Flower House contains pieces from at least three different ancestral houses, each chosen for the colour of its grain.
There is a particular Vietnamese tradition behind this. When an old wooden house can no longer be cared for in its original setting — when the family has moved, or the structure no longer fits its purpose — the wood is not destroyed. It is preserved. Often, it waits for years in a barn before someone finds the right place for it.
Walking through Thiên Ý, you are walking through the memory of villages that no longer exist as they were. The wood remembers their families, their meals, their winters. We have tried to make a home worthy of that memory.
[Editor's note: a draft post. We'll write more about the carpenters who do this work — they are quiet, extraordinary, and few.]