Tube Houses & Wire Falls

Tube Houses & Wire Falls is an original illustration set in Hanoi, Vietnam. It lies in the tropics, where the climate is monsoon-influenced humid subtropical — dry winters.

A row of extremely narrow tall houses stands one room wide and many storeys high. Utility poles burst with cascading bundles of black wire. Low plastic stools sit on the pavement outside a shopfront, and the cool-season light is soft and hazy.

Why are these houses one room wide and five rooms deep?

Frontage taxed by width produced houses one room wide and five deep — the tube house is a fiscal artefact turned into a building type. The wire bundles record electrification added to a street plan that never anticipated it. Pavement stools rather than indoor seating work where it is warm year-round and the street is the shared living room.

Terpano is a free daily geography puzzle. You study one original illustration, place a pin on a borderless terrain map, and see how close you were. There is no account and no sign-up; progress stays in your own browser. It plays in 11 languages.