Graduation project in Hanoi Architectural University

My graduation project was the final one that I conducted in order to graduate from my 5-year college. Its name was “Planning the road networks for Buon Me Thuot city - DakLak province, designing an interchange and civil infrastructure for a residential area”. It was about the first time when there was a student of the Civil Infrastructure department integrated many topics within a final project. While a student used to choose to a transport planning project or a technical preparing project, I incorporated (i) Transportation planning, (ii) Grading, (iii) Storm drainage, (iv) Electricity supply for an urban area, and (v) Detailed design for a selected interchange. There were also several special features in my final project, including::

• It was also the first time in my college when a graduation project embedded google map as the background layer for the planning.

• I applied the results from my research which was conducted when I was at year 4 in order to design the grading for the complex interchange and very hilly terrain along the main road.

• In my department, students usually present their final work with printed paper maps. I used both paper maps and slideshow, which was about a new thing in my departments back at year 2006.

My defense was highly graded by a committee of 8 members. And it was then sent to the 2006 Loa Thanh contest organized by the Ministry of Construction, Vietnam Association of Architects, Vietnam Federation of Civil Engineering Association, Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union. It was my honor to achieve the first place in that notable contest. Later on in 2014, I was told by my former advisor, Prof. Pham Huu Duc who took part in a conference on Loa Thanh contest that Prof. Nguyen Tai (who used to be the committee chair for the Loa Thanh contest for a long time) said in front of the audients that so far the most memorable project that he had graded was mine. It was a very joyful moment for me.

There is another event that I cannot keep it for myself. In June 2015, when my father had a trip to Buon Ma Thuot city, he was not so sure about how to go to Don Village. He talked to me by phone and I open my computer to check up the google map. I was so familiar with this city, Buon Ma Thuot, since I had been there for weeks to survey the entire city for my final project. Checking the city, I zoomed in the area where had taken for my detailed design in the second task of my final project. Surprisingly, I saw my design down there on the map. It means somebody had taken my final project and conducted a real urban area. Unbelievable, my design was just a college final project. I laughed a lot but then wondered if I should be happy or worried about the fact that I had had discovered. It is a copyright issue and obviously, someone has taken my work to submit for approval and now the area is being built. I was planning that if I have time in the near future, I would definitely sue the people and company who have stolen my work. Let’s see.

Figure 1: The comparison of my final project (on the left from my design) and the actual build (on the right from Google Map)

You can download my entire graduation project here.