This picture on the right shows clearly the "standard building" form. A standard building is about 5 meters wide at the front. It may be any depth and have any number of floors. The front though is 5 meters. This form is applied everywhere. Even a building on a clear lot or out on a country road will be a long rectangle 5m wide at the front.I'm told this relates to two things, street addressing and taxes. Wider than 5 meters means the building has more than one address and more than one address means more taxes.
There's probably other reasons as well or maybe entirely different reasons. When I mentioned the taxes reason, given by one of my tour guides, to my finance she disputed it. She didn't have another explanation but didn't believe taxes are a cause for this design.
I don't think it's address is an issue either. My grandma house in bien house in bien hoa has the with of those two houses combine. My opinion is that if land ownership, build the whole house because land is expensive? In support, she recently bought a house (shack like) behind her house, but I was told that she just paid for the land itself and she still use the same address as the main house. I hope I made any sense. As to the height, well I was told a few years ago because I thought the style looked ugly and design cemetery like, she told me that the richer people can afford taller building so IMHO, it's all in ostentation because there people don't use the whole house!
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