Tropical Architecture

The Tropical Bathroom Part 1

2017-05-02T20:20:00.000+01:00

Be it an outdoor Jacuzzi set in a deck or a fully-enclosed private space, we give you a plethora of ideas for tropical bathing in this chapter. Bring the outdoors in, give precedence to either sink or tub (not both), enlarge with mirrors, create a zen-like spa space whatever takes your fancy, it’s here.

Because it’s the tropics we’re talking about, the outdoors and outdoor elements feature prominently. Borrowing from some of the region’s most talented spa and bathroom designers and decorators, many troppo home owners have incorporated courtyard bathrooms into their homes and villas. But the look is easily extended into enclosed bathrooms too: bring plants, natural materials such as rocks, bamboo, pebbles and the like, as well as plenty of light and air into this most private of spaces and you can transform the dullest of rooms into a full-on bathing beauty. Because of the boom in Asia’s spa business, we’re seeing a lot more variety in bathroom hardware these days. Utilitarian tubs in standard shapes are increasingly being replaced by innovative bathing options entire walk through wet rooms, stand-alone tubs with pressure jets, huge rain showers with their massive roses, for example. LED colored mood lighting is almost de rigeur nowadays, and floor and wall coverings increasingly imaginative. Think large format tiles with a textural finish and glistening metallic sheen or a subtly shimmering wall of tiny pearlescent mosaics; limestone is always stylish for flooring, and if you live in a colder climate, be sure to install under floor heating before laying floor tiles.

Cutting edge technology comes to the closet with digital showering a major trend. Electric showers are particularly cost efficient, with eco-settings and precise temperature controls and programmes. And if you have high water pressure, the aerated showerhead injects air into the water, thereby boosting performance without wasting water. Check out all these new ideas and create a truly indulgent bathroom; it’ll be modern and eco-sensitive too.

Eva Shivdasani, the creative director of this his and hers duo, has opted for raw materials and finishes to create a country-style washroom here. Mirrors, mounted on pillars, are bordered with roughly hewn wood, while walls sport an outdoor, whitewashed look. The glass counter top enhances the free-flowing space.

Outdoor Bathing

There’s something incredibly liberating about luxuriating in an outdoor bathroom, with nature and the natural world close to hand. Obviously, a warm climate is a must for such an experience, as is a profusion of tropical foliage, plenty of natural organics around, and either a clear blue sky or a starstudded hemisphere above.

However, a simulacrum can be created within the confines of four walls, a floor and a ceiling if more than a dash of imagination is utilized. Our selection of outdoor bathrooms is for the most part very much outdoors (often in quite remote, wild places), but, with a careful use of props, they could be adapted within more conventional confines.

Take the use of natural stone, for example. In some cases, here, the bathrooms have been shaped around the contours of large boulders that were originally found on the house site. A similar look can be recreated at home with clever use of river stones, moss-encrusted walls and palms and ferns in concealed pots or planter boxes. Add some sculptural driftwood or a stand of miniature bamboo, a large rain shower and some crazy paving and you can imagine your Balham semi a Balinese villa.

Seriously, though, if you get the elements right, the rest follows. And if you do live in the tropics, take some inspiration from this selection. Don’t be too rigid: a slightly slapdash use of sand and stones, pebbles and plants gives the right outdoorsy feel. Don’t be too particular with the placement of items; you want a wild jungle not a manicured park. Go for rounded contours, irregular shapes and overgrown foliage. Cracked tile mosaics are another idea: they’ll help with cleanliness, but look somewhat thrown together.

Terrazzo is the perfect material for an outdoor tub, especially one that is fed from a roughly-hewn stone cascade. The textured quality of the “walls” conceals hidden lighting.

A polished wooden deck, rustic chick blinds and a surrounding tropical garden are all that’s needed here for a true back-to-nature bathing experience. Scented rose petals add to the spa feel.

A zen-like space is created here with the clever use of natural rocks, bamboo walls, a lone frangipani tree and wooden decking. The crème de la crème, however, is the round tub. Made from cement with a bronze finish via a process known as cold forging, it is a highly original piece.

A Japanese effect is created with the use of geometric wooden trellis work and large sunken tub in Villa Shasa, Koh Samui, Thailand. Of course, the sea views add an extra dimension! It’s hardly surprising that water forms a focus here, as the villa’s name translates as “holy water”.

Even though this bathroom is found in a Singapore apartment and is fully enclosed, it has the feeling of the great outdoors because of the addition of a small adjacent balcony that doubles up as shower cubicle and garden. Add to that light streaming through floor-to-ceiling glass, beautiful veined marble and a Corbusier lounger and you have a modern, yet tropical, feel.

Who would imagine that a rustic verandah could be transformed into something quite so stylish? The Japanese wooden tub and water container are com plemented by unfinished wood counter and large ladder towel rail. Bumpy walls, a thatch and bamboo roof and chick blinds complete the open-air feel.

Billowing soft muslin drapes, an adjacent garden and cool, turquoise stone create a disctinctly ethereal al fresco feel in this Balinese villa bathroom designed by Valentina Audrito. Rustic water ladles and bowl by Japanese glass artist Seiki Torige sit on the bath rim while water bubbles from concealed jets.

Arranged adjacent an atrium lightwell, this shophouse conversion bathroom benefits from sliding glass doors that allow for the inclusion of light and air. Large urns containing mini trees are reflected in the wide mirror thereby enlarging what is in fact quite a narrow space.

Tropical Tables, Casual Dining

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For the most part, tropical dining is a casual affair. Many homes don’t even have a formal dining room, with dining tables often placed adjacent the kitchen or on the verandah. Where there is a special room, you’ll often find it has a multi-functional purpose: it can double up as a place to work from as well as to entertain in.

As such, tables need to be flexible: bespoke, super-long models are highly practical, while the trestle table is easily dismantled and stored when not in use. Folding tables are another alternative. If the table is placed near an open-plan kitchen, the area turns into a social center too: the chef can converse with guests while cooking. Ubiquitous wood is an obvious choice in the tropics. Be it stained a dark mahogany or a lighter shade, it adds warmth to a room. If teamed with white chairs or a bench with white cushions, the look will be fresh and natural. White tableware in organic shapes looks appealing with all tones of wood, too.

If you want to enlarge your dining room, a see-through glass table is a good choice. Glass is increasingly the material of choice for much furniture around the home, as it creates the illusion of more space. An airy arrangement of glass-topped table and an eclectic mix of chairs is a top choice for a small space; it doesn’t block out light and can look very modern.

For an outdoor setting, a lowish table set beneath an umbrella with comfy sofa and lounge chair seating is ideal. Shades of vermilion and orange are suitably tropical, with grey a useful neutral.

Lacquered table and bench top furniture with stainless steel legs is designed in Vietnam by Quasar Khanh. Khanh was attracted to stainless steel as it is very light; hence, such furniture is easily transported from one part of the house to another.

A colonial-style setting with polished wood table and cane-and wood chairs is a timeless classic. The artwork is by Goa-based sculptor and painter Subodh Kerkar.

A bright, airy effect is achieved here with the use of glass, water and light that enters via this shophouse airwell. Adding to the cheerful composition is a simple table with bright toned floral arrangement and earth-toned ceramic tableware. The curved wooden chairs are from Space; note how their wood tone mimics that of the door handles.

This deceptively simple small dining room is a study in carefully thought through design details. Wooden slatted walls are painted white and paired with breezy sari curtains in a light beige shade, thereby enlarging the space. The table’s statement-making color is offset by fine high-backed chairs with a leather finish and tableware that sports a delicate crackled glaze. Cute individual purple vanda blooms “wrapped” in Calathea leaves are matched by the pastel hue of light mauve napkins.

The casual covered verandah in this home in the Philippines is a picture of light, airy elegance. The dark stained wooden table comfortably seats six on light rattan chairs.

A rustic Balinese home built entirely from teak has a large open space that doubles up as both dining and living area. Surrounded by assorted statuary, a long trestle table is set for lunch with pastel-toned tableware from Jenggala Keramik.

Somewhat messy, but cheerful and homey, a long slim table displays a selection of Thai lacquerware food containers. The mismatched chairs add to the general laissez faire feeling.

Thai green celadon coffee table and containers sit before a casual dining area on the verandah of a Thai home. A trellis above casts shade; in fact, the area can be closed off with heavy wooden shutters if so required.

An ironwood deck protected by a Plexiglass roof plays host to a casual table with revolving chairs in a Sarawak home. The surrounding garden is a riot of orchids, ferns and anthuriums; at night, illumination comes courtesy of a pendant light encased in a fish trap shade.

Emerald Shades And Serene Spaces

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Located in a compound in Canggu, these two villas are ideally situated close to the beach in a beautiful Balinese garden with mature trees and plantings. Although totally different in layout, design and atmosphere, they share a common architectural language, exemplified by the extensive use of old ironwood electricity poles as a structural and aesthetic element and the correspondence between the architecture and its surrounding landscape. Both villas take full advantage of the serene surrounds in which they find themselves.

Designed by Indonesian architect Yoka Sara of the firm Bale Legend, the villas employ both modern and traditional elements. Sara was aiming at a balanced composition, and this he has achieved with a strong interplay between curved and straight, horizontal and vertical, heavy and light. Named Emerald Sunset and Emerald River for obvious reasons, both villas are impressive additions to the Bali holiday rental scene.

Emerald Sunset is composed of three two-storey buildings linked by a second-floor terrace, which has fabulous sundowner views over the sea. The main volume sports a fresh architectural composition: old electricity poles and hollow steel beams form the basic structure which houses a downstairs living area and an upper relaxing corner. A slim curved metallic roof is the most eye-catching feature: it both insulates the building and seems to soar above it giving a general sense of agility and lightness.

This contrasts, yet complements, the other two structures that are rather more vernacular in form: an open dining pavilion and a building that houses the bedrooms. The latter is noteworthy for its use of double-height ironwood poles that support the roof and, in some cases, plunge down into the 20-metre-long (56 feet) curved swimming pool that hugs the side of the building. The pool is composed of lava stone and Indian slate tiles that change colour from emerald to sky blue depending on the time of day and the weather.

Emerald River, the second villa, is more traditional architecturally but is nonetheless stunning mainly because of the way its buildings have been incorporated around an “island” of mature trees and vegetation. Comprising four different two-storey buildings, linked on the second floor by a large terrace and connecting “bridges”, it sports a curved pool with a dramatic concave overflow, attendant sinuous pavilion-style living and dining spaces and again the use of structural ironwood supports.

There is no doubt that guests are spoilt for choice as regards key locations in both villas: Where to lounge? A poolside pebble-washed terrace, an open-plan living room overlooking garden and rice field or a 25-sq-m Jacuzzi? What better dilemma to have when on holiday?

Bali Architecture At The Crossroads

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Bali has been labelled many things tropical paradise, island of the gods, an idyllic Shangri la, and more but never before have such words as “urban”, “conurbation”, “traffic clogged” and “busy” seemed appropriate. Earlier writers have tended to wax lyrical about Bali’s ruralism, its rice field landscapes, its “otherness”. They’ve discussed its largely intact culture, its traditional architecture, mores and religious practices and its other wordliness that makes such a refreshing contrast with much of the rest of the world.

Rarely has it been referred to in terms of building booms, urbanisation and pollution. Commercialism, maybe, but certainly not rampant consumerism.

That seems to be changing now. Many of the mangroves and rice fields have disappeared in the Denpasar, Sanur and Seminyak areas, being replaced by highways and buildings. Ubud is no longer a sleepy artists’ colony; it sprawls ever outwards. And many of Bali’s sacred spots around its ancient temples have seen large, commercial developments in recent years.

Before this all sounds too depressing, it should be noted that there are still plenty of spaces on the island that continue to follow a quiet rhythm away from the madding crowd, as it were. Kintamani’s slopes are still cool, pinescented and sweet; the volcanoes are largely untouched. Much of the island’s interior is still jaw-droppingly beautiful with undulating rice terraces and the north, east and west coasts (if you travel far enough) are fairly undisturbed.

But, developed and developing, it is. Two previous books, Bali Modern and Bali Houses, Iooked at the changing face of Bali’s increasingly international architectural offerings, and, in many ways, this book continues the journey. All the structures featured herein have been built post millennium, and all represent to some degree the continuing modernist trend. Whether it is encapsulated in a restaurant, a private villa, a mini-hotel, a club, a garden extate or a residential home is irrelevant.

Yesterday’s primitive thatched huts are increasingly being replaced by large hotels, resorts, private villa estates and sophisticated homes that in many cases would not be out of place in more urban surrounds. They employ a certain sophistication in building techniques and materials, and the interiors are more cosmopolitan or designer authentic than rice field ethnic. This is undoubtedly a major attraction for the more discerning vacationer seeking to rent a villa for a tropcial vacation.

Certainly, Bali leads the tropical market in exclusive private villa rentals, but there is another market that is growing even faster: that of the smaller “village” where a series of almost identical rental villas sits cheek by jowl on a fairly small plot of land. Architecturally, these are often fairly “urban” in style and they cater to the growing market from both within Indonesia and from other Asian nationals, such as Singaporeans, Malaysians, Koreans, Chinese, Taiwanese and the like.

This market segment is, for the most part, represented by a fair number of stereotyped and standardized units that are less “tropical” than their predecessors. People are attracted to the idea of a relaxing long weekend or week in Bali, but they don’t want to leave their creature comforts behind. Hence, the number of urban box-like residences that are architecturally less creative and more utilitarian in functionality continues to grow. Such homes are also characterised by an increasingly homogenized style of interior design that features furnishings from the must-have imported brands now available island-wide. The general look is more business-like, perhaps a little more in the style of Asian apartment living.

Whatever one thinks about this trend, and the types of architecture it is producing, the island still continues to conceive and construct some buildings that are architecturally innovative, forward-thinking and, indeed, beautiful. For the main part, this book showcases a selection of private residences, but there are also a few public places that merit inclusion. Each is different in style: some retain links with the early tropical forms so beloved of the traditionalists, while others tend to be cleaner, more pared down, even minimalist. There’s also the retro look (harking back to the past but still firmly rooted in the present), the glass-and-steel metropolitan configuration, and the updated rustic trend.

For the most part, the silhouettes tend to be sleeker than those featured in the past. There’s a new sharpness, especially in the commercial venues, that mirrors Bali’s more mercantile outlook. As the island attracts more short-stay sophisticates and less long-term dream-seekers, the environs shift accordingly.

All the properties featured have been selected because of their architectural creativity and their un-hackneyed interior design schemes; they are the perfect repositories not only for the new wave of furniture, furnishings and artworks that continues to be developed and manufactured in Bali, but also for the international materials and brands that are now available. In addition, they are representative of the type of indoor-outdoor living we have come to associate with the island. It could be argued that they epitomise the true essence of tropical living.

Complementing their surrounds and inviting views of ocean, jungle or rice terrace inside, they are, without exception, built from natural, yet increasingly refined, materials and furnished with a cool eye. Even though they may be more complex than their earlier counterparts, they still allow Bali’s environment to take centre stage.

In some ways, Bali is at a crossroads. On the one had, there is the demand for globalized, standardized products, on the other there is a group of tropical visionaries creating ever more artistic offerings.

The Philippine House Goes Tropical Modern

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Modern residential architecture in tropical Asia generally and in the Philippines in particular is going through a fascinating phase of architectural evolution. Stylish new homes in Metropolitan Manila, the capital of the Philippines, and sultry waterside locations scattered around the archipelago’s 7000 tropical islands, are providing plush living spaces for increasingly affluent Filipinos.These new houses have sparked a renaissance in residential architecture that is not only changing the Philippine suburban landscape but is also providing fodder for the imagination in international publications, pointing to a nascent design trend: “Tropical modern” is becoming the new modern.

Philippine “tropical modern” is characterized by residential designs that are distinctive in their use of mutable space, sensual local materials, and functional accommodation of hybrid East–West lifestyles. Echoing a pan-Asian trend and a larger trajectory for architectural development in tropical-belt countries, spaces in these homes show creative configurations of often-minimal spaces. Filipino architects and designers are also offering fresh approaches in the use of materials and architectural elements that cater to both the changing cosmopolitan tastes of an ever more discerning Filipino élite and the aspirations of a progressive, budget-conscious middle class.Tropical modern design is affordably “cool.”

“Cool” means more than fashionable façades and hip interiors. It includes environmental friendliness. In their search for this, Filipino architects are constantly experimenting with new materials and techniques or rediscovering almost-forgotten materials and traditional arts and crafts expertise. Cross-ventilation, sun screens, wide eaves, raised floors, and sensitive solar orientation—devices long used in local vernacular architecture, perhaps unknowingly—are now given a contemporary twist with the use of steel instead of bamboo, concrete and fiberboard instead of woven mats, glass and plastics instead of capiz shells.These older vernacular materials are not being discarded but are instead being processed in new ways with lamination, machine weaving, heat tempering and shaping to produce attractive building materials. Passive cooling, solar power, recycled gray water, and ventilated roofs are being rationally employed in house designs.Tropical modern is not only architecturally “modern” and affordably “cool” it is also “green.”

Cultural color is another big factor in the designs of these tropical modern homes. The interior and exteriors address, both spatially and socially. The lifestyles that Filipinos (as well as many other Asians elsewhere), have grown to know and enjoy. Modern Filipinos adopt Westeren life, work, and leisure styles to fit cultural norms and social nuances. The demands of the extended family, the need to frequently entertain during the Philippines numerous festive occasions, the projection of social standing and roles in the community, and the concept of "hiya" (face) are intertwined with Western or modern practicalities such as the acceptance of home/office setups, a reduced dependence on domestic help, and the advent of two-career households, multiple-vehicle garage, and modern communications technology. Tropical modern merges cyberspace with traditional cultural space, at the same time retaining the best of both.

The single most important factor, however, that differentiates one tropical modern Philippine home from another relates to site and the Filipino architects response to this. Whether the site is a sprawling suburban lot, a small urban core, or and idyllic resort locale well away from Metropolitan Manila with a romantic name like Punta Fuego or Calatagan. The final design of a house is influenced by the site: its size, the limitations imposed by its overall visual impact.

Bunker House

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The Bunker House is an intriguing compact residence located at Lopburi, some 180 km and three hours drive north of Bangkok. Like the Transverse Convergence House by the same architectural firm, this is a plastic composition in concrete. The owners of the house, Siriwan Tiensuwan and Noppasorn Duangtawee, sought out architect Vasu Virajsilip having read an article published in art4d on the Transverse Convergence House. The project architect working on the design was Ratthaphon Sujatanonda.

The inspiration for the design, Vasu attests, comes from the book Bunker Archeology published by Princeton Architectural Press. Authored by Paul Virilio, a French urban planner, the book features images of World War ll bunkers on Normandy beaches. They are, he writes ‘lonely and vigorous’. The house owners are, like Vasu himself, fascinated by these concrete structures that simultaneously express security and surveillance. Another source of inspiration is said to be the strength and fluidity of the nearby Pasak Cholasit Dam, the largest reservoir in Central Thailand. Furthermore, Lopburi has long had a connection with the Thai military it was set up as a military settlement by Field Marshall Piboonsongkram in 1938 so perhaps the name of the house is appropriate in these circumstances. Indeed, it is true that from certain angles the house does resemble a military bunker.

Ultimately, the architect has succeeded in answering the owners expressed desire for privacy while simultaneously requiring interaction with the outside. He has worked with the contradictions inherent in the request, such as ‘hidden versus visible’ and ‘secure versus open’. The house, located in a residential enclave in Lopburi, is private, yet the owners can observe life on the street and a canal beyond from their living room.

The asymmetrical H-shaped plan of the 330-square meter dwelling has two roughly parallel boxes linked by a glazed entrance lobby at ground floor level. The plan embraces two courtyards, with a fountain in the rear court and a pond in the forecourt. The use of water around the house is intended, says the architect, to reduce the ‘stillness of concrete’. Trees and landscape are integrated with the plan form.

The interior of the dwelling is designed for open-plan living, with a double-height space over the living area visually connecting with the master bedroom at the upper level that gives access to a timber roof deck. There is one guest room that is set apart from the main activity and accessed via the glazed entrance lobby.

The sculptured geometry of the house is consistently angled, and there are striations cast into the concrete walls. Horizontal metal sheets are utilized as cladding on the taller of the two blocks. Thick concrete walls and huge overhangs shield the clear glass windows from solar insolation, while openings on opposite sides of the house allow for cross-ventilation. The ‘bunker’ analogy is continued with the incorporation of slit windows in the concrete façades.

The quality of detailing is similarly consistent, with narrow slots alongside the staircase to permit daylight to enter, inclined window mullions and louvers, and special attention to the detail of recessed spotlights. The staircase itself is precisely detailed and incorporates a place to sit into the second riser. Finishes include unpainted plaster walls and floors of a reflective composite marble material. Circular concrete columns, 300 mm in diameter, give a Corbusien ambience to the interior. The house is simultaneously austere and comfortable.

Sumet Jumsai Studio

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Sumet Jumsai’s studio is a marvelous Le Corbusier-inspired weekend residence and painting studio. The off-form concrete structure is essentially a white box sitting in a garden of carefully mown grass against a backdrop of the ocean and sky. The form is generated by a 6 m x 6 m square ground floor plan extruded vertically, with an upper floor of the same dimensions and a fl at roof, accessed by a very steep external stair.

The studio was designed by the renowned Thai polymath for his own use. Sumet Jumsai is a direct descendent of Siam’s King Rama III, who lived from 1788 to 1851. Sumet was educated in France and England and was awarded a Ph.D. in architectural studies from Cambridge in 1967. Le Corbusier was a major source of inspiration when he was an undergraduate. Being conversant in English and French when Corbusier visited Cambridge, Sumet found himself briefly assigned as an interpreter to the modern master.

Sumet was also influenced by Colin Rowe and Buckminster Fuller, and he has applied contemporary European forms and technical innovations to buildings designed within the Thai context.

In 1969, he formed his own private practise. His best-known early work is the angular Science Museum in Bangkok (1977) in collaboration with Tri Devakul and Kwanchai Laksanakorn. But his most famous and controversial designs are the Robot Building (1986), the Bank of Asia’s headquarters now UOB’s HQ on Sathorn Road in Bangkok that was selected by Genova, the Cultural Capital of Europe in 2004, to be part of the exhibition ‘Arti and Architecttura 1990–2004’, and the Nation Building (1988). The latter, a distinctive tower block, is the headquarters of Bangkok’s leading newspaper. Sumet is also the author of Naga: Cultural Origins in Siam and the West Pacific, a seminal book on the origin of civilization and architecture in Southeast Asia that grew out of collaboration with Buckminster Fuller.

Now the septuagenarian architect has retired from architectural practise and concentrates his energies on painting. He planned from the late 1989 onwards that he would build a studio on a 1,400-square meter plot of land purchased thirty years earlier at Sriracha, on the coast of the Gulf of Siam, 80 km to the southeast of Bangkok. It would be the ultimate scheme for what he has described as his ‘graceful disintegration’. Allegedly influenced by the political turmoil that engulfed Bangkok in 2006, he swiftly designed the small dwelling and construction commenced on the site in 2007. Eight months later, the studio/residence was complete and Sumet now escapes from the city at every opportunity to pursue his passion for painting. Sriracha is a one-hour drive from Bangkok and is a place where, unlike the metropolis, the skies are clear in the afternoons and evenings and the light is excellent for painting.

Sumet studied in Paris as a young man before going on to Cambridge University. In France, the works of the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso shaped his ideas. ‘Picasso was part of my generation in the early 1960s, plus Vivaldi and modern jazz.... I was drawing and painting from an early age,’ he recounts, ‘but my father didn’t want me to be an artist. So I decided to study architecture, as it was the nearest thing to art. But I discovered that architecture is art. It’s a very important form of art, and it’s also a form of poetry in concrete and steel, wood and glass.’

The architect’s love of European culture is immediately evident, for upon entering the studio the music of St. John Passion by Bach, sung by the choir of St. John’s College, Cambridge (his own college) is being played at full volume, and before long a bottle of Chianti is opened.

This is one of the few private homes he has designed. The lowest floor is equipped with a small kitchen, a food preparation area, dining space, a bathroom, a bed space and a library. The service entrance is from a sunken courtyard on the landward side of the house.

The upper floor is entered via a bridge over the courtyard. The bridge evokes memories of the entrance to Le Corbusier’s Mill Owner’s Association building at Ahmadabad, India, and Sumet confirms that this was the indeed the precedent. This floor is his painting studio—there are easels and a long bench facing the window and the Gulf of Siam beyond. There is a high ceiling in the studio, and a brightly colored red ‘samba’ staircase connects to the living space below. The studio is filled with paintings, on easels and hung on or stacked against the walls. All the works of art are rendered with intense color. In addition, there is a small, door-less bathroom separated from the room by a 1.5-meter-tall cupboard. The architect explains that it was designed this way in order to induce the most spacious and simple effect possible, in keeping with a lifestyle of simplicity where the main focus is on painting.

Projecting out from the studio on the seaward side is a broad timber balcony with views of fishermen tending their boats and mending their nets. It is a timeless place, and the view cannot have changed much for centuries. Access to the roof deck is gained from the balcony by the external stair.

‘This house has been designed for the use of one person,’ explains the architect/owner. ‘I come here to paint on weekends.’ Other than the homage to Le Corbusier, Sumet Jumsai’s studio also employs a color scheme reminiscent of Gerrit Rietveld’s Schroeder House or a Mondrian painting.

The Other Residene

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The Other Residence is a cubist composition located on the edge of Khao Yai National Park. Surrounded by high mountains in the relative isolation of a broad valley, the house has a ‘U’-shaped plan backing onto a steep forested hillside to the north and enclosing a timber-decked courtyard with a lap pool and a mature tree that shades an outdoor dining area. There is a dynamic contrast between the precise horizontal lines of the architecture and the natural landscape in which it is set.

The owners are Dr Jens Niedzielski and Paramee Thongcharoen. Both are directors of an international brand consultant and advertising agency with headquarters in Bangkok. Paramee Thongcharoen, a Thai, studied Business Management at California Technical University and later graduated with a Masters in Interior Design from the University of California at Los Angeles, but she has always worked in advertising. She lived for many years in Los Angeles before returning to Bangkok via Germany where she met Jens Niedzielski, who is of German origin, in Dusseldorf, while she was working for BMW. They have another residence in central Bangkok, but they enjoy escaping to Khao Yai at every possible opportunity. ‘The capital is a quality place to work,’ says Jens, ‘but not to live. This house is an antidote to life in Bangkok.’

The architect of the residence is Duangrit Bunnag. He is a close friend of the couple, who were looking for a specific ‘style’ of architecture. Jens describes the house as ‘in the spirit of the Bauhaus of the 1920s’, which is exactly what he appreciates, along with the work of Tadao Ando and ‘architectural masterpieces’ in Southern California. They knew Bunnag’s work well and considered him the best man for the job.

The house took three years to build. It is constructed in lightweight concrete for thermal mass, but neither the architect nor the contractor had used this method of construction before and learned by doing. There was wide variation in concrete quality, and on one occasion the contractor attempted to pour a whole floor in the rainy season. Consequently, there was lots of tearing down and rebuilding before a satisfactory finish was achieved.

Jens is technically inclined he explains in great detail how they specified a ‘well-built’ house. Consequently, the pump room and electrical system are purposefully overspecified to cope with any emergency. The house is designed to cope with extremes of climate, for temperatures can be 9 degrees at night rising to 35 degrees during the day. His wife Paramee speaks more of emotional attachment to the house of Thai cultural traditions. But both were united in their requirement that the house should be ‘a home away from home’, not a vacation home but a family residence.

They lived on site during the construction in a small dwelling that is now occupied by Paramee’s parents, and their new residence was completed when their daughter was three weeks old. The accommodation includes a bedroom for their teenage son, a movie and audio room and a games room. The master bedroom suite is cantilevered six meters over the house entrance, which is otherwise somewhat uncelebrated. The couple designed the kitchen themselves using Siemen’s components. It is a double-height space in an open plan that connects to the dining and living area. While the house is predominantly white, there are brilliant splashes of magenta on selected walls. The planar geometry generates beautiful effects of light and shade.

The couple muse upon the response of other people to their house. They observe that it is sometimes mistaken for a clubhouse or a school. ‘Most Thais are conservative and would not build a house like this. Indeed, to many a flat roof is “unfinished”. As in other cultures, the so-called “mainstream” has a very stereotypical image of a house.’ Perhaps it is travel and education that changes perception of what a house can be. It is also true that a house is ‘a portrait of its owner(s)’.

Lampyris House

2016-05-08T08:00:00.000+01:00

The Lampyris House is a striking modern residence located on sloping high ground adjacent to Wat Mongkutkiriwan and close to the boundary of Khao Yai National Park some 120 km northeast of Bangkok. It is the weekend retreat of Kamolwan and Prasert Fungwanich. The location in a secluded area is very quiet and intensely dark at night. At the heart of the residence is a magnificent tall ‘swimming pool hall’, with a kaleidoscopic array of rectangular windows.

The architects of the house are Ponlawat Buasri and Songsuda Adhibai of S+PBA Co.Ltd. Ponlawaat Busara is a graduate of Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok (1991), where his ‘Linkage’ design was selected by Tadao Ando and Jeffrey Kipness as winner of the Association of Siam Architects under Royal Patronage Experimental Architecture Competition. His partner in the firm, Songsuda Adhibai, graduated from King Mongkut Institute of Technology Ladkrabang in Bangkok and gained a Masters degree in Landscape Architecture from the University of Colorado at Denver in 2000. Both serve on the faculty of the School of Architecture at King Mongkut University of Technology at Thonburi.

The couple set up their practise in Bangkok in 2005, having gained recognition both nationally and internationally. They were named one of the finalists in the 2002 Grand Egyptian Museum competition sponsored by UNESCO and the International Union of Architects, and one of five finalists in a 2004 competition for the design of a World Performing Arts Village in Limerick sponsored by the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland. More recent notable successes include first place in a competition for the Sport Center at Thailand Science Park, Pathumthani, in 2007. One year later, they were awarded first place in a competition for the ‘Garden of Innovation’ Laboratory at the Science Park.

Ponlawat expounds on the firm’s philosophy: ‘Our office has grown in Bangkok, a hybrid city that has hundreds of problems for creating good architecture. Our working method attempts to find an innovative design solution for each project.’ A third partner in the practise is Taylor Rhodes Lowe, a Literature graduate of the University of California at San Diego and an M.Arch. graduate of the School of Art Institute of Chicago, who articulates the theoretical underpinnings of the fi rm’s design methodology. His critical writing has earned him both the Berkhadt Prize and the Schiff Prize. He currently teaches in the International Program in the Faculty of Architecture at Chulalongkorn University.

The Lampyris House is constructed of concrete and glass and is raised on piloti. ‘To create rooms with a single view was not the best design solution for this site,’ Ponlawat explains. ‘Thus, at the start we decided to raise the building up in the air. Each “room” is constructed on rectangular columns and floats at treetop level.’

The house is a multilevel dwelling descending the slope. An audio-visual space, living space, kitchen/dining room and bedrooms are located in a constellation at different levels around the swimming pool hall and a landscaped courtyard. The external form of the house is generated by a ‘diagram’ with the primary functions of the dwelling joined, like a space station, by 1.3-meter-wide glazed corridors and stairs, which allow the house occupants to experience a constantly changing environment when they move from room to room. The master bedroom overlooking the swimming pool hall has distant views from an external roof deck. Ponlawat describes it thus: ‘The Lampyris House … fosters endless activity. We decentered the programme into an accentric system with connected nodes of activity ... it is a constellation of polygonal buildings.’

The entrance hall at the highest point of the site generates the main circulation route, which is a loop to connect rooms at different levels together and returns to the point of origin. The separation of the architectural mass meant the construction required only two trees to be cut down. Opening windows in opposite external walls induces natural ventilation.

The outside of the house is painted a deep purple, while the interior is pristine white. The evocative name of the residence refers to a small insect that glows in the dark northern forests. Similarly, the ‘purple exterior dissolves into the night sky’ and emits light from numerous separate windows, but during the day the windows frame multiple views of the surrounding mountains and a large pond in the foreground. The intention is to reforest the site, which had previously been cleared for agriculture.

For a visitor, the functions of spaces are often ambiguous. ‘The house’, architect Ponlawat concludes, ‘is about journeys not destinations. Anyplace can be anything. You can sit anywhere and have multiple experiences. Activities are not assigned to specific spaces but at places along the way.’

Komkrit House

2016-05-07T07:57:00.000+01:00

The Komkrit House is a precisely articulated cubist composition that embodies Japanese and Western influences. The ‘cool’ modern residence is located in an expensive gated settlement off Pattanakarn Road, Bangkok.

The owners of the house, lawyers Komkrit Kietduriyakul and Chaveewan Likhitwattanachai are both graduates of USA universities Harvard, Boston and Cornell and are now partners in the law firm of Baker and McKenzie that was founded in Chicago in 1949. In their work, the couple have an international orientation, but their house is traditional in the sense that it is a threegeneration residence. In addition to the owners and their daughter, the house is home to a sister, who lives in a self-contained apartment on the lower floor of the main house, and a retired parent, formerly an engineer with a Japanese automotive firm.

Surrounded by a high white wall, the house occupies two plots in the gated Noble Estate and is entered via a vehicular court in the southeast corner of the site. The sliding entrance gate is flanked by a white cherry blossom tree. A sharp left turn through a narrow gap opens out to a tranquil turfed courtyard surrounded by white walls that hosts a tall tree and a reed bed. Directly ahead to the west is the ground floor accommodation for the parent and an entrance lobby with stairs leading to the upper floor that contains the principal rooms. The dining space looks east toward a swimming pool. From the courtyard, a 180-degree turn to the right leads to a broad flight of external stairs that ascends to the pool deck and visitors’ accommodation in a poolside sala.

The house is intended to be a minimalist, neutral background to family life. The predominant color is white, in the form of smooth Turkish marble. The Japanese influence is most evident in the design of fenestration and internal sliding screens. Interior designer Barbara Barry carries through the meticulous detailing of the architecture to the design of the furniture and a system of cabinets. The powder room is palatial, with an impressively high ceiling.

The architect of the stunning modern house is Boonlert Hemvijitraphan, the principal of Boon Design. Explaining the very different architectural language of the Komkrit House when compared with others he has designed, such as the Aurapin House and the Acharapan House , Hemvijitraphan emphasizes, ‘This is not my house. It is my client’s and I design each house for the owner, not for myself.’

Acharapan House

2016-05-06T07:56:00.000+01:00

The Acharapan House is located some 60 km west of Bangkok in the Baan Suan Kwan Estate a tranquil, bucolic landscape of paddy fields. The house is also referred to as the Pa Ji (Aunty Ji) House after its owner, Acharapan Paiboonsuwan, a popular Thai TV personality and veteran stage actress. The secluded site, located alongside a large pond flanked on two sides by drainage ditches, has been protected by the construction of berms on three sides to prevent flooding. The buildings are also elevated.

The residence consists of two pavilions with simple hipped roofs. One incorporates a dining/living space, a principal bedroom and an en suite bathroom and toilet. The other serves as a guest pavilion. There is rich materiality in the teak-framed pavilions, both of which have high timber-lined ceilings and are roofed in traditional clay tiles without gutters. The floors, too, are polished teak. The house is orientated to benefit from the southwest and northeast breezes, while trees shade the external walls.

It is an extraordinarily sensitive design that responds well to climate and context. The house has walls that can be opened up entirely to the broad, shaded verandah, and the ‘in-between’ space that is the essence of all good houses in the tropics is thoroughly exploited. The owner craves silence when she arrives here, and surrounded by rice paddy she finds it, for the surrounding gardens, designed by Monthon Jiropas, are serene and tranquil.

The architect, Boonlert Hemvijitraphan of Boon Design, explains his design: ‘I appreciate buildings that are humble, so that when you enter you feel at peace. It is also important to experience nature the wind and the rain.’ His philosophy is simple: ‘Do not fight with nature.’

The house replaces an older dwelling on the site that was connected by a timber walkway to a traditional Thai pavilion built on stilts which is used as a kitchen and servants’ quarters. Pa Ji had consulted four other architects, but eventually settled on Boonlert who advised that she demolish the main house and start anew while retaining the service building. The architect designed the house to reflect the lifestyle of Pa Ji and it is pared down to the essentials. She has no desire to collect paintings or souvenirs. ‘I want to live in a tidy and clean house. I require only necessary furniture like a bed, bench and closet. I don’t like a messy house full of unnecessary and unused things.’

The result is a traditional form but there are some elements of modernity the mosquito net is motorized and concealed, and the HÄFELE television retracts into a timber box. The elegant wooden house is comparable to a large sala in a garden. The walls are essentially open to the elements though protected from sun and rain.

When the owner arrives at the house, she is happy to live a simple life amidst natural surroundings. ‘When I have to work I stay in my house in Bangkok,’ she remarks. ‘But whenever I am free from all burdens, I will head to my second home, my favorite place, to relax my body and soul.

Boonlert talks about other architects’ work that he admires. ‘I love Frank Gehry’s architecture the first of his buildings that I experienced was Loyola Law School in California (1978). It is very clever and reveals the complex program. I would never say no to complexity but I like things to be simple.’ He continues: ‘I once attended a lecture by Peter Zumthor at the AA in London. He talked about the Therme Vals and what impressed me most was his emphasis on sensory aspects of architecture.’ Boonlert reflects that ‘two aspects of life that will be expensive in the future are nature and culture’.

In 2008, Baan Lae Suan magazine voted Pa Ji’s house one of the ten most beautiful homes in Thailand.

L71 House

2016-05-05T07:54:00.000+01:00

The L71 House is a clearly articulated composition in a modern architectural language that responds logically to climatic imperatives. The designers of the house, which was completed in 2010, are Surachai Akekapobyotin and Juthathip Techachumreon of The Office of Architectural Transition (Office AT Co. Ltd.) Both partners are graduates of King Mongkut Institute of Technology Ladkrabang in Bangkok. Upon graduating both worked for large architectural practises in the capital, Surachai with Plan Associates and Juthathip with A&A Architects, before undertaking their Masters degrees at the University at Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.

On completion of their studies, they both worked in New York for three years. While there, they won a competition organized by the Van Allen Institute for the design of a public transition space from subway to sky train. Returning to Thailand, they set up practise and shortly aft er won another competition, this time for the Bangkok University Art Gallery. Th e gallery is complete and has subsequently won an award from the Association of Siam Architects under Royal Patronage. They continued to garner awards with another competition winning entry for the National Discovery Museum Institute exhibition and auditorium. Their practice now employs six staff . The two architects are part of a young architects group in Bangkok that meets informally to discuss issues relating to architecture.

The L71 House occupies a long, narrow site perpendicular to the public road. The site configuration and context drive the plan form, resulting in a linear east/west axis. All the principal rooms are to the north of the axis, overlooking a swimming pool and rectangular garden, while the subsidiary spaces are to the south of the axis. There is a clear allocation of ‘served’ and ‘servant’ spaces as defined by the modern master Louis Kahn. The orientation and the cantilevered upper floor also maximize shade in the principal rooms.

The brief of the owners, Tosaporn and Samorn Wongweratom, called for the separation of ‘public’ and ‘private’ spaces. The various functions of reception, living and dining are consequently rationally planned in a linear configuration of interlocking spaces, and external landscape is ‘inserted’ into the spatial planning. Doors and windows open in both long elevations and, consequently, there is excellent cross-ventilation. The house owners have occasional parties and thus the public areas are located close to the parking at the entrance to the house, while private areas such as the dining room are located at the rear. The living room was extended across the site to create a private space for the swimming pool.

The materials used throughout the house are a delightful combination of white marble, polished limestone and pale wood, with a particularly striking central staircase in limestone highlighted by daylight that penetrates from a skylight above the stairwell. Skylights are used elsewhere in the house to emphasize specific features, including a family altar. The restraint of the design and the manipulation of daylight are reminiscent of some contemporary Japanese architecture, and the partners admit to the influence of the innovative work of Toyo Ito, Kengo Kuma and Kazuyo Sejima.

Carol Grodzins House

2016-05-04T07:51:00.000+01:00

The inspiration for Carol Grodzins’ House was a Dayak longhouse in Borneo. In the 1960s, the owner, after completing her undergraduate studies in Russian Language and Literature in the US, decided to join the Peace Corps established by John F. Kennedy. She was posted to Sarawak where she taught in a Dayak school for two years, from 1967 to 1969. In the time she was there, she lived in a Dayak longhouse much like the ones depicted in Pendian Dirumah Panjai (Life in a Longhouse) by Hedda Morrison. On her return to the US, Carol abandoned Russian studies and took up nursing, expecting one day to return to Sarawak to help build healthy communities. Soon after, however, she met her husband, a physics professor at Harvard University. They have two grown sons.

A social entrepreneur and activist at heart, Carol worked to change obstetrical practise in Massachusetts toward family-centred birthing, and then addressed what she saw as the number one public health threat in America nuclear war by launching the Massachusetts Nuclear Freeze Movement. In 1989, bringing together her commitments to international development, public policy and health reform, she joined the Harvard Institute for International Development and spent the next eleven years there and at Harvard’s Kennedy school.

Carol directed the Edward S. Mason Program in Public Policy, whose graduates include Lee Hsien Loong, Prime Minister of Singapore, Sir Donald Tsang Yam-Kuen, Chief Executive and President of the Executive Council of the Government of Hong Kong, and M. R. Chatu Mongol Sonakul, former Governor of the Bank of Thailand. In 2000, Carol left Harvard to become Vice President of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public. Ashoka envisages a world where everyone realizes they have the right, the skills and the capacity to improve society. Now retired and a senior advisor to Ashoka, Carol teaches ‘social entrepreneurship’ at Chiangmai University.

While living in Massachusetts, Carol became familiar with the modern architecture of Walter Gropius at Lexington and lived in a community designed by the Architects Collaborative, but equally importantly she is a frequent visitor to Sri Lanka where she has experienced the work of Geoff rey Bawa. Upon deciding to build her house in Chiangmai, Carol drew on her earlier experience of the Dayak longhouse. She recalled the wisdom of cross-ventilation, orientation to catch the prevailing breeze, balconies and verandas, and wide overhanging eaves to provide shade, and resolved to draw upon what she terms the ‘ancient wisdom’. All of this would have been recognizable to Bawa.

In 2006, the owner saw the site at Sansai, located some 10 km north of Chiangmai. It was part of the development of a former orchard instigated by Suthini Jumsai. She was subsequently introduced to Pattawadee Roogrojdee and Apichat Sriarun of 639 Architects Co. Ltd., who have earned a reputation as designers of modern houses and resorts that draw upon the traditional form of the Northern Th ai House. Pattawadee is a graduate of Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok where, in 1995, she obtained a Masters degree in Building Technology that focussed on energy conservation. She is familiar with the work of the Malaysian architect Ken Yeang and studied Yeang’s Menara Mesiniaga project when writing her M.Arch. thesis. She currently teaches energy conservation in building design and daylighting design at Ratchamangala University of Technology Lanna in Chiangmai.

Apichat Sriarun is a graduate of Silpakorn University, who over forty years in practise has developed an expertise in Northern Thai architecture. He is best known as one of the designers of the renowned Four Seasons Resort in Chiangmai. He also teaches conceptual design and site planning at the same university as Pattawadee.

Carol Grodzins’ House is raised on tall concrete piloti to avoid flooding and snakes, and has a linear plan form entered from the southeast through a symbolic gateway and thence, alongside a pavilion that houses a guest bedroom, to an external ‘dog-leg’ staircase that ascends to a broad linear south-facing veranda. The timber deck gives access to three more pavilions, the first housing the living room, dining room and kitchen with a service stair; the second accommodating a study, and the third the principal bedroom. All the principal rooms face a lake that cools the prevailing southwest wind. The house, detailed in ‘Modern Lanna Style’ is, to quote the owner, ‘an antidote to modernism’. The house is undoubtedly a success in terms of its sustainability. It is largely naturally ventilated and the owner has planted banana and fruit trees while fish are available from the lake.

Materials include white cement that should not require painting, traditional roof tiles on a Thai style roof pitched at 40 degrees that helps create a stratification effect, recycled timber floors internally and redwood decking externally. The configuration of the house, which is one room wide, enables comfortable conditions to be achieved with natural ventilation. It is a remarkable residence the product of a close working relationship between the owner and the architects.

Casa De Umbrella

2016-05-03T07:49:00.000+01:00

Completed in 2009, Casa de Umbrella is a highly unusual house clad with a plaited bamboo ‘skin’ that extends, like a huge tent, over a supporting steel structure. The purpose of the woven bamboo is to filter out the sun’s direct rays, but it also adds a rare touch of magic and experimental originality. As the house name implies, the design employs the metaphor of a bamboo parasol to shade the living areas.

Located in Sankampaeng province some 42 kilometers to the east of Chiangmai in a broad valley fringed by mountains, the house lies within the Chiangmai Highlands Golf Resort adjacent to the third green. Radab Kanjanavanit, the owner of the house, is a structural engineer and Managing Director of RKV Engineering Consultants. He is a self-confessed golf addict, but a 4x4 vehicle, two powerful Suzuki motorbikes and four mountain bikes in the carport, all superbly maintained, speak of a passion for other outdoor activities; indeed, he is one of Thailand’s foremost yachtsmen, and he regularly features on the leader board of the Phuket King’s Cup, Asia’s premier yachting event, sailing his trimaran ‘Cedar Swan’.

The architect of the two-story house is Somchai Jongsaeng of DECA Atelier, a Bangkok-based designer whose own residence I published in 2001. Somchai worked in close collaboration with the owner who was enthusiastic to experiment with structural and cladding solutions. The supporting structure is playful, with 100-mm-diameter inclined RHS columns beneath the bamboo umbrella while electrical services are surface-mounted in conduit. Various mechanical and electrical devices supplement the natural ventilation to ensure comfortable conditions. These include misting devices and outdoor radiant heating, for nights can be very cold in the highlands.

The open texture of the bamboo umbrella permits the house to breathe. The reception area and kitchen/breakfast area, located on the ground floor, are naturally ventilated while the living area and the dining area on the upper floor, accessed by an open-riser steel staircase, are both open-sided. There is a sense of living in a huge sala with immediate visual and olfactory connection with the natural environment. In the afternoons, an intermittent breeze springs up from the northeast to stir the air and there is a pleasant sound of wind chimes suspended from the eaves. The roof has wide overhangs, yet the openness of the main living areas requires that bamboo chick blinds be lowered when it rains heavily. The bamboo umbrella performs a secondary function of protecting the house occupants from the occasional miss-hit golf ball that soars over the third green.

A steel bridge gives access to the bedroom wing from the living area. The airconditioned master bedroom, which has an attached open-to-sky bathroom, extends to a sheltered semi-outdoor space with a bed and mosquito net for sleeping under the stars on cool nights. The bedroom is the most personal space in the house and here there is an opportunity to display contemporary art works. Overall, the house is light and airy, relying on the cool breezes in this mountainous region to refresh the living areas. The transparency of the house becomes increasingly evident at dusk when, from a distance, the organic profile of the roof merges with the skyline of the distant hills. Once the golfers and their motorized carts have departed in the early evening, the house becomes quiet and secluded.

A 25-meter lap pool and outdoor showers contribute to a relaxed, resort-like ambience, and a small gym and massage room overlook a retention pond at the edge of the golf course that assists in cooling the house. A timber deck extends from the living room over the pool.

Materials include thermoplastic tiles on the external roof and walls, plaster/cement rendering on internal walls, polished cement floors and stained chipboard. But the predominant memory is of the unique bamboo cladding, resembling a permeable brown cloak draped over the structure and suspended over the open veranda. The bamboo was specially selected and was recommended by artisans who had worked with the architect on a project in Chiangmai. The material was placed in water to make it pliable and then rendered with a chemical solution to enhance durability.

Radab Kanjanavanit is the owner of another impressive house, also designed in collaboration with Somchai Jongsaeng, located on a cliff face near the Yacht Marina in Phuket. That house, too, is experimental, incorporating a variety of bridges, elevators and terraces as it steps down the precipitous slope, in the process framing impressive views of the ocean. Some of the structural details, like those of Casa de Umbrella, reflect the owner’s expert knowledge of yacht technology.

Soi Wat Umong House

2016-05-02T07:44:00.000+01:00

The Soi Watt Umong House is a ‘Miesien’ composition of concrete and glass pavilions grouped around a courtyard and set in secondary tropical forest. The site is located close to Chiangmai University in Thailand’s second largest city.

The owners of the house are Rirkrit Tiravanija, an internationally acclaimed Thai artist, born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1961, who spent his childhood years in Ethiopia and Thailand, and his Japanese/American wife Antoinette Aurell, a photographer who worked in Paris and New York before moving to Chiangmai. The couple live with Antoinette’s two children from a previous marriage, a boy who is studying at an international school in Chiangmai and a daughter who attends college in the US.

The design of the house originated from a physical model constructed by Rirkrit in 2005. Photographs of the model were sent to Neil Logan (of Fernland + Logan Architects in New York), an American architect and friend, who made modifications to the structure and designed built-in closets, kitchen shelves and stainless steel work surfaces. The drawings were later passed to Aroon Puritat, a graduate of the Faculty of Architecture at Silpakorn University, who resides in Chiangmai. The two had met while Aroon was researching his graduate thesis on contemporary art museums. In the process, he had examined works such as Pad Thai (Untitled 1990) by Rirkrit. He also worked with Rirkrit on The Land, a community of artists close to Chiangmai (1998).

The house was to be built without destroying any trees on the site so at the outset all the trees were marked. The other requirements included a workroom for Rirkrit and a photography studio for his wife. The owners consulted fengshui master Kochakorn Promchai to finalize certain details, such as the auspicious positioning of the entrance door. She recommended that ‘the house entrance be from east to west, that the kitchen should face north the person cooking should face north and that there must not be any water in the middle of the home’. Aroon adjusted the drawings to fit the site, the available materials and the capabilities of the construction industry in Chiangmai and then finalized the architectural drawings for submission to the authorities.

The design process included Paponsak Laor, who contributed jade green tiles for the bedroom and inner courtyard wall; Professor Kamin Lertchaiprasert, who produced large drawings of a dragon, intending it to be applied to the ceiling of the library and a phoenix for the ceiling of the carport; Sethatwut Pinyorit, who was responsible for various structural features, and Taneeya Yuktadatta, who advised on lighting design.

The collaborative relationship was by all accounts challenging as Aroon strove to reconcile his architectural training and the requirements for a coherent end product with Rirkrit’s desire for ‘incompleteness’ for the house. For an architect, a commission that invites experimentation at each step is rare. The result, as one writer has noted, is that the dwelling is, in a sense, a ‘new work’ by the artist arrived at through the medium of architecture. In an interview with Calvin Tomkins of the New Yorker on 17 October 2005, Rirkrit stated that many of the concepts behind his work borrow from Buddhism, where Doing Less is the same as not trying to embellish or make something more than what it is.

‘I am fascinated by architecture,’ explains Rirkrit, who in 1996 produced a 1:2 scale reconstruction of Philip Johnson’s Glass House at New York MoMA. ‘In particular, I am interested in modernism and the idea of self-criticism it contains [and] the conceptual problems relating to it.’

Towards the end of 2005, Rirkrit and Antoinette moved from the USA to Chiangmai to supervise the construction of the house although Rirkrit insists that the house was really ‘designed’ by the workers on the site and that it was a hand-made process, ‘closer to sculpture than architecture’.6 The collaboration between the owners and the architects continued with frequent emails from Neil Logan that were translated and implemented by Aroon Puritat.

Essentially, the house has an orthogonal U-shaped plan around a central courtyard. Soft dappled light penetrates into the heavily planted central court and a gentle breeze rustles the leaves. The house is remarkable for its silence. The structure is basically a concrete frame with concrete block and glass infill. The ground floor is lift ed one meter above the terrain typical of traditional Thai houses in order to avoid mud and floodwater aft er heavy rain and also vermin. In addition, it permits under-floor ventilation. A shaded timber deck runs around the perimeter of the central garden giving access to the various functions.

An ever-present character in the remarkable house is Harry the friendly offspring of a French bulldog and a Boston terrier that appears whenever a photograph is about to be taken, along with another less ebullient old dachshund named Torru.

The focus of family life is the open-plan kitchen and dining area adjoining the living area, which has a large square kitchen table, a smaller kopi tiam table and a sunken pit in the living space for gatherings of family and friends.

There is a distinct Japanese influence in the interior design, specifically in the master bedroom, which is based on the dimensions of a tatami mat, with futons spread on the floor. Sliding timber wall panels and the proportions of the fenestration also attest to a Japanese sensibility. Th e master bathroom was designed by Antoinette based on a traditional Japanese tub. The circular staircase up to the studio office was a direct copy from Charles Eames, while the office shelving was a modified copy of a Charlotte Perriand wall unit. Antoinette and Rirkrit selected all the interior and exterior finishes, including terrazzo, tiles and wood.

Guided by the expertise of a horticulturist friend, Stuart Rodgers, Antoinette was initiated into planting and gardening and has developed an obsession with tropical plants. In the northern corner of the site she has created what she describes jokingly as a petit trainon, an enclosed tropical garden that alludes to a space in the Palace of Versailles where her namesake Maria Antoinette and invited guests ‘could take light meals away from the strict étiquette of the Court’.

Baan Jew

2016-05-02T02:48:00.000+01:00

Baan Jew, translated as ‘Tiny House’, is a compact modern dwelling on a 220-square meter corner plot near Chiangmai University. Kwanchai Suthansoa and Tanit Choomsang, the Executive Director of Plankrich Architects, designed the 165-square meter house set within a small garden for Nawaree Summasanti, a retired automotive engineer.

Tanit Choomsang studied architecture at Ratchamangala University of Technology Lanna in Chiangmai and then pursued a Masters in Urban Design at the prestigious University of the West of England in the UK, before returning to Chiangmai where he set up practise in 2005 with fellow architect Khwanchai Suthamsao, a graduate of King Mongkul Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, and civil engineer Sakchai Thongpanchang.

Plankrich Architects is an inventive architectural practice whose other notable projects include Baan Khun Kaew and Mo Rooms, a twelve room boutique hotel in Chiangmai that the venerable Dr Sumet Jumsai has hailed as ‘one of the most exciting designs I have ever seen’. Plankrich is based in a striking minimalist modern office, also designed by the practise, with a cake shop at the entrance for staff and passersby. In mid-April 2011, when I met Tanit, his two fellow directors were outstation during the Songkran Festival and I was informed they were ‘driving to China’.

Built for just one million baht (£30k), the simple two-bedroom Baan Jew demonstrates the architects’ ability to create a beautiful object on a limited budget. The ground floor of the house is raised one meter above the level of the garden and entered by a short flight of stairs. The house is designed to make the maximum use of available space and is built without excess. Materials are modest. Walls are fair-faced concrete and floors polished cement. Ceilings are relatively low at 2.7 meters and space uses are planned to overlap. Cross-ventilation is achieved by opening the entrance door. An open-sided staircase gives the appearance of additional volume in the living area. A steep internal ladder gives access to a roof deck from the upper floor, and a roof light along the boundary wall introduces daylight.

The lesson to be learned from Baan Jew is that it is not necessary for a house to be large or for money to be lavished on expensive materials. Here, simple, clean lines and the manipulation of space and light create a tiny jewel.

Yellow Hole House

2016-05-01T02:44:00.000+01:00

The Yellow Hole House is an extraordinarily elegant, exquisitely proportioned modern residence. Constructed in off form concrete, the structure features a tall yellow-painted column and a yellow-painted projecting upper floor, with an oversailing roof like a plane wing. The design is clearly influenced by the mid-twentieth century European architecture of De Stijl, Gerrit Reitveld and Le Corbusier.

The 280-square meter house was designed by Kwanchai Suthamsao and Tanit Choomsang of Plankrich Architects. The philosophy of Plankrich Architects is based on the idea of ‘alternative approaches in design, to try to turn crisis (disadvantage) into opportunities’. Anecdotal evidence suggests that it is tough surviving as an architectural practise in Chiangmai.

The reverse side of this situation is that it produces entrepreneurial architects who create opportunities, and Tanit Choomsang is no exception. He owns the Good View restaurant in Chiangmai, which opened its doors in 1996, with other outlets located in Bangkok, Pattaya and Vientiane, and he and his fellow director Khwanchai Suthamsao are the architects and proprietors of Hallo Dormtel, a funky low-cost student hostel and backpacker’s lodge with a bar and a souvenir shop, which is clad in recycled washing machine panels. The Plankrich office also accommodates a delightful cake shop adjacent to the entrance, that attracts the public.

Tanit Choomsang is a former president of LANNA, an offshoot of the Association of Siam Architects under Royal Patronage. The firm’s designs are driven by a desire to exploit local materials while simultaneously incorporating new technology, all with a view to meeting environmental concerns. From its base in the north, the practise has extended its operations to other regions of Thailand.

Built in the garden of their parents’ house, the two-bedroom Yellow Hole House is owned and occupied by Sivika Sirisanthana and her younger brother. Their father is the owner of a Toyota franchise in Thailand.

The plan of the house has a linear organization, with the entrance accessed from a large carport at the eastern end of the site. A short flight of stairs leads to the lobby, and beyond is an open-plan ground floor with all the principal rooms, including the living, dining and kitchen areas, looking north over a luminous blue lap pool to the garden the siblings share with their parents.

A double-height space above the living room connects to a gallery on the upper floor that gives access to the two bedrooms. In the gallery, a dramatic two-story-high bookcase and display cabinet occupies one wall. Horizontal timber cladding and a glass block wall on the rear elevation are crisply detailed, while the air-conditioning units are cleverly concealed on the same rear wall. The raised ground floor level recalls traditional responses to flood-prone areas in Thailand.

The precise orthogonal lines of the Yellow Hole House represent a determined break from traditional Thai residential forms. At the same time, the dwelling maintains the strong family relationship between children and their parents that is evident throughout Thailand.

Dama zAmya

2016-04-30T02:40:00.000+01:00

Dama zAmya is perched atop a hill on Phuket Island, with magnificent views to the north of Ngam Island and Pa Yu and Kung Bay in the foreground. Remote and isolated, yet only 10 km from the International Airport, it is approached by a narrow, winding 2.1 km road that climbs steadily upward through a rubber plantation from its junction with the coastal highway.

Wildlife, landscape and travel photographer Gary Dublanko and his wife Dea Zoffman own the eco-friendly dwelling. Dublanko specializes in African wildlife and landscape and travel photography in Southeast Asia. The couple have lived in the tropics for more than a decade, and they acquired the piece of land on a secluded hillside bordering Khao Phra Thaew National Park (a non-hunting area) in 2007. Dublanko decided that sustainable living offered a perfect counterpoint to his former career as an oil industry engineer, and an ideal ethic for the tropics.

The couple’s desire for a fully selfsustaining house led them to seek out John Bulcock, a British architect who works out of Kuala Lumpur. Bulcock received his training at the Hull School of Architecture in the UK, which at the time was considered a radical institution led by Michael Lloyd. It followed a structure based on the AA London model. Hull had a very strong ‘alternative technology’ base, as ‘sustainability’ was called in the 1980s. After graduating, Bulcock set up his own practise, but six years later decided to travel and he arrived in Malaysia via India. In India he worked for a year with Balkrishna V. Doshi, who was an important mentor. It provided a link with two of Bulcock’s architectural heroes Le Corbusier and Louis Kahn for Doshi is one of the few living architects who worked for both of the modern masters. Upon his arrival in Kuala Lumpur, Bulcock swiftly found employment, and he soon came to the attention of an international audience with the publication of his design, in collaboration with Hans Carl Jacobson, of a regional headquarters for the Danish firm Novo Nordisk in 2000. He subsequently set up his own consultancy in Kuala Lumpur in 2002.

‘At the start of the process, we specified that the house had to be low maintenance and energy efficient,’ says Dublanko. Aft er a number of site visits, the architect presented the plans for their new house. ‘All our projects incorporate passive design, including orientation to minimize the area of exposed heat absorbing hard surfaces, roof overhangs, rainwater harvesting, and landscape as an integral design element for shading and cooling,’ says Bulcock. Accordingly he studied the sun path and the wind cone for the location and sited the house accordingly. Further cooling strategies include roof surfaces that are either vegetated or pebbled, creating garden spaces for entertaining as well as providing additional insulation for interior spaces. ‘For ten months of the year we don’t use air-conditioning,’ affirms Dublanko. ‘There is abundant air flow and the house cools down quickly at night. On still days, a fan is utilized.’ Banana and papaya trees flank the house, together with shady travellers’ palms, so that in every sense the owners endeavor to be self-sustaining.

‘My approach was to design a house that would work with the natural contours of the site,’ explains Bulcock. ‘The steeply sloping site falls 21 meters, so the intention was for the house to hug the slope as it steps down. This has resulted in a series of subterranean and cantilevered spaces. Not only did this reduce the impact on the site in terms of cut-and-fill, but it also helped to create a stable internal temperature. Furthermore, it opened the house to the environment.’ The house is constructed from concrete that also helps create a stable thermal mass.

The house is essentially two diverging, primary structures linked by the entrance veranda at the top of the site. Further down the slope, a 25-meter swimming pool and timber deck also link the two major elements. ‘The spaces have been kept open as much as possible. The bathrooms are open to the elements. Only the bedrooms, TV room and kitchen can be fully enclosed. Full-height mosquito screens in the living areas allow the spaces to remain open without admitting insects and geckos,’ says Bulcock. Arriving at the house, a vehicle court gives access to a broad flight of steps leading to a veranda that extends to the open-plan kitchen and dining area. Th e principal living area is at a lower level, with direct access to the pool deck and thence to the master bedroom suite that looks southeast to the distant forests and plantations. Looking south along the entrance veranda, there is a small lily pond.

Because of the remote setting, at the start of construction there were no water, electricity or sewerage connections. Even now, only electricity is connected. Rainwater is collected from the roofs and channeled into an 80,000-liter underground storage tank. During the dry season, water from a 72-meter-deep well supplements the tank. All wastewater is treated on site by an Aerotol septic system.

Materials include fair-faced concrete, terrazzo, merbau wood and bamboo screens. The owners selected natural earth-tone pigments for the walls. Th e floors and interior doors are made of merbau recycled from a 40-year-old house nearby. There is extensive clear glazing, but wide overhanging roofs shade the glass, and windows are located to permit breezes to naturally ventilate the interior. ‘It is important for me,’ says Bulcock, ‘that buildings are “honest”.’ As such, I favor natural materials and materials that do not need finishes and that have their own integrity, for example, off-form concrete, fair-faced brickwork ... also bamboo and rattan as they have low embodied energy. I use a small palette of materials that create simple, calm and uncluttered space.’

After two years of construction, during which time the owners took on the role of building contractors, the finished 560-square meter house named dama zAmya, which means ‘a peaceful retreat’ in Sanskrit is ultimately a brilliant exposition of building in the tropics.

Villa Noi

2016-04-29T02:21:00.000+01:00

Villa Noi is a cluster of glazed pavilions orientated towards the setting sun at Natai Beach on the shores of the Andaman Sea. The pavilions are located among a stand of towering casuarina trees, whose delicate branches provide a striking contrast to the precise horizontal lines of the architecture. The design pays homage to Mies van der Rohe, one of the acclaimed masters of the Modern Movement. The house, located adjacent to the Aleenta Resort and Spa, is the vacation home of Veronica and H. Chin Chou and their family. Their main residence is in Hong Kong.

Moving around the site, the views are orchestrated superbly. From the entrance court there is an axial route flanked by fountains across a bridge over a rectangular pond. At the end of the vista is a two-story rectangular flat-roofed dwelling housing living and dining space, with the principal bedrooms above, that is set transversely across the axis with views through a lanai to the ocean beyond. Arranged around the main house, with access to the timber pool deck, are three single-story glass pavilions that variously serve as additional family accommodation, guestrooms, a service block and an entertainment pavilion with a plasma television, a pool table and a bar overlooking the beach. Th e layout was planned on a Mondrian-like orthogonal matrix. The plan also contains the essence of a traditional Thai compound, with its various family pavilions clustered around a timber deck.

Raised high above the beach, the house has a broad flight of stairs leading down from the pool deck, with a gate at the lower level that provides security and makes the house appear somewhat aloof. Yet, it is not divorced from the ocean, for the sound of waves rushing up the beach is a constant presence.

The glass pavilions that are so integral to the design of the house contain sleeping accommodation and semi-outdoor bathrooms, and expose their occupants to the gaze of other family members and guests. There is an issue here of transparency versus opaqueness, privacy versus openness and exposure versus concealment, for even in a family home the different generations require personal space.

Every member of the family and their guests is given a view of the sea from their bedroom, and the main living rooms are also orientated westwards, while bathrooms, some open to the sky, face east. The architect has gone to great lengths to retain the trees on the site. Some actually grow within the pavilions and penetrate through the roof.

Villa Noi is a large and dispersed space. The distance between individual pavilions discourages walking in the hot sun during the day, but the large timber pool deck comes into its own for large family parties and for corporate entertainment as the sun sets gloriously over the horizon. There is a great calmness about the architecture. Materials include steel cruciform columns, black aluminum window frames, clear glass, horizontal timber boarding and terracotta brickwork.

This is another house designed by Duangrit Bunnag, the talented principal of Bangkokbased DBALP, the architectural firm he founded in July 1998. Houses of this type in Phuket are quite different to Bangkok. Many are the boltholes of expatriates from Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and elsewhere, who come to the island to escape the pressures of life in the metropolis to relax and swim or sail.

Laemsingh Villa

2016-04-28T02:18:00.000+01:00

Laemsingh Villa No. 1 is a stunning vacation home located above a precipitous rocky headland on the west coast of Phuket Island facing the Andaman Sea. It is the holiday home of Australian Julien Reis and his Singaporean wife Yen. Th e couple are the proprietors of the Gallery Reis located in the Palais Renaissance retail mall in Singapore that is ‘committed to introducing outstanding contemporary art by established and emerging artists globally’.

The house is one of a group of five villas designed by the Singapore-based Argentinean architect Ernesto Bedmar, a consummate master of sophisticated design in the tropics. Bedmar, a graduate of the University of Architecture and Planning at Cordoba, arrived in Singapore in 1984 via Hong Kong where he worked with compatriot Miguel Angel Roca. Three years later, in 1987, he founded Bedmar and Shi Design Studio with interior designer Patti Shi.

Alighting near the top of the site at a flat-roofed carport with a planted sedum grass roof, the entrance to Laemsingh Villa No. 1 is signaled by a sharply pointed double-pitched Thai-style roof above an open-sided pavilion that affords a framed view of the ocean before descending a relatively narrow stone staircase alongside a tumbling water feature to a pivoted timber door. A sharp right turn brings visitors to the main living area, which has a broad timber deck, a frangipani tree and a panoramic view of the ocean beyond. A shaded outdoor breakfast area and a sun deck overlook a dazzling green infinity swimming pool.

To the right is a pavilion for dining and entertaining, extending out to a timber balcony cantilevered over the cliff. At first the pavilion appears to be open-sided but closer inspection reveals frameless glass windows that permit it to be air-conditioned when the days are particularly humid. Stairs descend from the dining room to the master bedroom and a second bedroom below and to another lap pool at the lower level. Family photographs complete the picture of a family home away from home.

A second staircase descends from the pool deck to another master bedroom suite, while another flight of stairs ascends to two bedrooms above. In this way, Bedmar has ingeniously created a residence that, not unlike a traditional Thai house, permits two or three generations to occupy the dwelling and to share core activities on a communal deck while maintaining a degree of privacy.

Bedmar’s skill lies in the orchestration of views and arrangement of spaces as one moves through the house. His architecture is choreographed in a dramatic sequence of vistas that alternate between specific controlled views as, for example, in the descent to the entrance door, to wide panoramas such as the view from the pool terrace. Th e views shift from compressed spaces to explosive vistas of the horizon, from foreground to horizon.

For much of the day, the principal rooms are in shade, and consequently the house is deliciously cool. The architect has integrated numerous places to sit and relax verandas, balconies and projecting decks, in effect outdoor rooms orientated west that provide vantage points from which to view the ocean and the setting sun. Th ere are also nearvertical views down through trees to the rocks below. The sound of waves crashing over the headland is ever present, together with the intermittent buzz of cicadas. The ocean is almost deserted save for solitary white sails on the horizon a silence that is occasionally broken as a speedboat full of laughing holidaymakers powers by from nearby Surin Beach.

Bedmar has created a strong split-slate podium upon which are placed timber and glass pavilions on slender columns topped by projecting pitched roofs that capture the essence of traditional Thai forms. The design is confidently proportioned and Bedmar knows instinctively where to place objects in the landscape. Materials include highly textured gray split slate, gray-brushed concrete, copper and timber. The surface of the main roof is naturally finished Canadian cedar strips above a layer of insulation. The underside of the roof is also timber.

Bedmar has a body of work that extends throughout Southeast Asia. He has also received commissions in India, New Zealand and New York. Two monographs of his work have been published acknowledging his recognition on the international stage.

Open House II

2016-04-27T02:14:00.000+01:00

Open House II is a strong formal design arranged around a black swimming pool in a central courtyard. A long raking staircase ascends alongside the pool. The life of the house revolves around the central pool court and all the rooms are inward-looking. The ground floor of the compact rectangular urban site is surrounded by a narrow perimeter garden of palms and banana trees, while a roof terrace provides a view over low-rise housing to the west.

The owners of the house are Naris Siamwalla, a software engineer who holds a Master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University in the USA, and his wife Maria, an Arts and Social Science graduate from the National University of Singapore. They have two small children. Naris’s parents have a residence immediately to the north.

The designer of the house, Pirast Pacharaswate, is an assistant professor in the School of Architecture at Chulalongkorn University. He received his own architectural training at Chulalongkorn University under Professor Pussadee Tiptus before embarking on graduate studies at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor in the US where he studied under Professor Jim Schaffer. Now, in addition to teaching in the School of Architecture, he has an office with seven staff.

The design of the house incorporates a number of responses to the microclimate of the site. Th ere is a solid brick ‘box’ at the southern end of the house where a stair core above the maid’s room acts as a buff er to the sun. The sun enters the courtyard from the west at 3.00 pm but is mitigated by a layer of screens and louvers, while the family room above the parking area also provides shade from the setting sun.

The architecture is robust and entirely modern without nostalgic references to tradition. Materials include red clay bricks, white glass louvers and black aluminum window frames. Th e roof detail over the carport appears to be heavily influenced by Constructivist architecture. There is a distinct contrast between the solid and transparent elements in this house.

Serenity

2015-12-30T14:29:00.001+00:00

Serenity is an incredibly beautiful house that reclines elegantly along the northern shoreline of Cape Yamu on the eastern coast of Phuket Island. The narrow linear site has stunning views of Por Bay and Phae Island in the foreground, while its connection to a wider world is signaled by the flight path to Phuket International Airport 12 kilometers away to the north over Phang Nga Bay. The house is the home of British-born Anthony Wilkinson and his Hong Kong born wife Anna (Wong). The couple have two daughters, one living and working in Brisbane and the other living and working in Hong Kong.

The house is designed in a sophisticated modern language with precise horizontal and vertical lines.

The house is entered through a large pivoted timber door from a south-facing vehicular courtyard. The door is set in a long gray granite-clad wall; a panoramic view of the ocean is denied at this point. Beyond the door, a transverse corridor leads to an open footbridge over a pond and waterfall that are, conceptually, a protective moat. At this point the spatial compression in the entrance lobby is dramatically released and there is an incredible visual connection with the sea, the offshore islands and the horizon. The element of surprise is an important aspect of the enjoyment of the dwelling.

The residence steps down the steep northeast facing cliff.

The orthogonal plan of the house is a series of interlocking rectangular spaces forming a linear composition occupying 60 percent of the 40-meter-long site. Th e architect has moved the house away from the slope to facilitate cross-ventilation, and the deep courtyards created along the southern edge of the house permit the house to breathe. The result is a sophisticated modernist composition with precise horizontal lines stepping down the slope but stopping short of the shore. A glittering azure infinity pool stretches along the upper deck, and in the rear courtyard is a dramatic tall fountain. For my visit, Anna Wilkinson has chosen to play a CD of a Parisian jazz ensemble that seemed wholly appropriate for the mood of the house.

A glittering infinity pool stretches along the upper deck.

I am accompanied on my perambulations by the owners’ three dogs two gentle chocolate labradors, Mooshi and Toffee, and Rusty, a local mongrel of a much more inquisitive nature.

Forests climb the ridge to the west.

The architect of the residence is Duangrit Bunnag of DBALP, who pursued his first degree in architecture at Chulalongkorn University before studying for a postgraduate diploma at the Architectural Association (AA) in London from 1993 to 1995 where he elected to join the studio of Jeffrey Kipness and Barhan Shirdel. Upon his return to Bangkok, Bunnag worked with Nithi Sthapatinonda at A49 before branching out on his own in July 1998. He was also editor, until 1999, of art4d, a leading architecture design and art magazine in Thailand.

The linear kitchen/dining area.

The owners of the house met Bunnag through an interior designer friend who had worked for DBALP, and from the outset a firm rapport was established. The couple did not want a traditional pitched roof, and so the house has what is known as a flat ‘upside-down’ roof, with insulation on the upper surface that maintains the interior at a consistently cool temperature. The sun rises at the end of the pool terrace at 06.45, but by 08.00 has moved south and does not penetrate into the house except in the late afternoon.

The route to the master bedroom.

The four-bedroom house is within a larger development known as Baan Yamu. Several weeks after visiting the house, I read the Man Booker Prize 2009 nominated novel The Glass Room by Simon Mawer. The author might have been writing about the uplifting spatial qualities of Serenity at Cape Yamu when he describes the Glass Room as ‘Perfection of proportion, of illumination, of mood and manner. Beauty made manifest.’

There are extensive views from all the principal rooms over Phang Na Bay.

A cool en suite bathroom looks into a courtyard.

A footbridge spans a pond between the entrance lobby and the living area.

The master bedroom suite has stunning views to the horizon.

The en suite master bathroom overlooks a pond.

A spectacular two-story-high fountain is located in a deep canyon like courtyard.

The dramatic top-lit service corridor.

The pivoted timber entrance door is set in a horizontal gray granite-clad wall.

A broad flight of stairs leads from the dining area to the pool deck.

Trop V House

2015-12-28T10:55:00.000+00:00

The striking feature of the Trop V House is the double-skin roof that employs steel louvers to create a shaded, ventilated space above a lower tiled roof. Th e house has a number of features that are reminiscent of the architect’s own residence, Baan Tawanork that I featured in The New Thai House in 2003. The orthogonal form employs smooth, circular concrete columns that contrast with the traditional pitched Thai roof with wide projecting eaves over the living room. The spacious three-bedroom house, completed in 2009, is the home of landscape architect turned developer Surachai Utaobin and his wife Wannaputt.

The designer of the house is Pirast Pacharaswate, an assistant professor in the School of Architecture at Chulalongkorn University. Pirast is inspired by traditional residential architecture recalled from his childhood, which he successfully synthesizes with modern forms and materials.

The plan of Trop V House takes the form of a linear open-plan progression of spaces stretching along the eastern boundary of a long, narrow site, with the principal rooms facing west. Entering via a vehicular forecourt at the northern end, a route can be traced past the living room and through the dining area that opens to a timber terrace and thereafter, via the family area, to an open court and a shaded lanai beneath the master bedroom. At the southern extremity of the house is a guestroom, which has direct access to the garden. Th e living room evokes memories of a traditional Thai house, with a high, 40-degree pitched soffit that is lined with timber. In sharp contrast, the structure of the roof has exposed steel ‘I’ beams.

The family room is a double-height space from which a broad timber staircase ascends to a bridge with a glass balustrade overlooking the room that has a large plasma screen TV. Th e bridge links the three bedrooms at the upper level and this is the heart of the plan. Yet, the coolest area of the house is the lanai beneath the master bedroom. It is a pleasant, breezy, external sitting space, with a view to the south over the extensive garden designed by the owner of the house. At 08.00, the lanai catches the soft morning sunlight, and again in the late afternoon the setting sun, but at midday when the heat is most intense this area is in deep shade.

As with his own house, the architect, who explores ideas in numerous sketches before producing CAD drawings, exhibits immense skill in fashioning the sequence of spaces and in determining the way in which light enters the house. The muted palette of materials includes white-painted plaster, concrete, dark timber and black aluminum window frames.

Transverse Konvergence House

2015-11-07T22:11:00.002+00:00

The Transverse Convergence House is the residence and design studio of architect Vasu Virajsilp. The two-story 550-square meter house/studio, which is located off Sukhumvit Road, is remarkable for the plastic use of concrete to achieve a sculptural form. Its distinctive and extraordinary manipulation of space and form, with interlocking volumes, ramps and stairs, is also a complete break with Thai tradition.

The house is noteworthy for the plastic use of concrete.

Vasu Virajsilp obtained his B.Arch. (Hons) at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, in 1996, where the major influence on his studies was Raymund Abraham. Later, he trained at Columbia University New York under Professor Bernard Tschumi, and obtained an M.Sc. in Advanced Architectural Design in 1998. He and Boonlert Deeyuen, who is a graduate of Silpakorn University in Bangkok (1996), set up the practise of VaSLab Architecture in 1999 (registered 2003). The two partners admit to influences from the work of provocative art and from architecture movements such as Cubism, Abstract Art, Modernism, Dada, Surrealism and Deconstruction.

The public façade of the house facing the site entrance.

The sinuous form of the Transverse Convergence House is an enigma. Underpinning the seemingly simple external form is a complex methodology. The arrangement of the internal space is much more intricate than the elevations. There is throughout the house a sustained ambiguity about which spaces are for living and which are for working. Th e boundaries are indeterminate and paths between the two are entwined so that, for example, the house entrance has the feel of an office lobby but immediately morphs into a comfortable sitting area with, alongside it, a drum kit. Visible beyond the office entrance is the residential dining room a double-height space located behind a black aluminum-framed glass wall with a splendid chandelier by Bellacor. Adjoining the dining room is the family room from which access is obtained via a security door to a staircase leading to the master bedroom. At the southeast corner of the house are a timber deck and a swimming pool reached from the living area.

A swimming pool deck on the private side of the house is concealed from the public gaze.

Between the living room and the family room, the route to the first floor design studio is signaled solely by the inclined soffit of a sculptural concrete stair. Arriving at the upper floor, a short concrete ramp, a thrusting angular bookcase and an architectural model indicate the transition from residence to workplace. At this point, there is an administration desk fronting a meeting room and, paradoxically, a guest suite. To the north of the studio is a single-story building that was initially intended as the home of an elderly relative but has now been turned into an ‘ancestor’s room’.

The public reception area morphs into a private living space.

For the first-time visitor to the Transverse Convergence House, the entrance hall is disorientating, for it is simultaneously a private residential domain and the semipublic entrance of an office. But the duality of the house obviously works for the architect/owner, who appears to reject the pigeon holing of life into categories such as ‘work’, ‘leisure activity’ and ‘home’. Here, they are all interwoven. In this residence, designed and built specially to suit his needs, the architect is able to explore deeply the interactions and contradictions in daily life and identify areas of intersection and convergence. The house reveals a uniquely personal concept of ‘dwelling’.

Throughout the house, the use of space is ambiguous.

The use of metaphor is a key feature of VaSLab’s design methodology. In the Transverse Convergence House, the architect utilizes a metaphorical interpretation of how three different paths are related. The house represents a journey in which three diverging and converging paths are translated into a series of space–form interactions, such as living/working and resting/meeting. Read in this manner, the initial confusion is replaced by the desire to more closely interrogate and comprehend the narrative.

Overlooking the dining area.

The intertwined activities in the building are visible from the forecourt. At ground floor level, floor to ceiling clear glass walls permit views of the hall and living areas, while the large windows on the upper floor reveal the architect’s office at work. Residence and workplace share the same palette of materials, namely off-form concrete, unpainted plaster, polished cement floors, timber ceilings and black aluminum window frames.

Overlooking the dining area.

Another deconstruction of the notion of work and place is evident when I arrive at the house to find Vasu and Boonlert the latter oversees detailing and construction setting off in their ‘mobile office’, a six-seater van with comfortable seats. ‘We spend four hours a day in Bangkok traffic,’ explains Vasu. ‘It is one way to use the time productively.’

Library shelves thrust forward like a projectile and signify the transition from residential to office space.

The entrance to the office and the residence from the vehicle forecourt.

A shaft of sunlight illuminates the office library.

House Jang

2015-11-07T04:52:00.004+00:00

House Jang is a family home in the very heart of Bangkok at Ruan Rudee Soi 2, off the busy Ploenchit/Sukhumvit Road. The house is built on a sliver of ‘left over’ land measuring just 160 square meters. Unusually for the center of Bangkok, the land is freehold.

The house occupies a challenging urban site surrounded by high-rise towers.

The initiator of the project was Stefan Schlau, a German-born British architect who has lived in Bangkok for almost two decades. He was born in Hamburg and received his architectural education at the Technische Universität in Karlsruhe and Berlin and the Architectural Association in London where he gained a diploma in 1977. His contemporaries included Zaha Hadid and David Chipperfield. He returned to the AA to teach in Peter Cook and Christine Hawley’s Unit in 1978 and ran his own unit in 1980–1 with Sotores Polydorou and Tom Heneghan.

The design is a bold geometric composition.

Stefan lived in London for twenty years, working initially with OMRANIA, Buro Happold and Frei Otto in Saudi Arabia before setting up his own practise, CLS Architects, in 1983. He designed a number of restaurants for Thai clients, including ‘Chiang Mai’, the first Thai restaurant in Soho, London, and various houses for Thai clients in London and France. When commissioned to design a large resort in northern Thailand in 1995, he moved his base to Bangkok and later built his own studio and residence in Soi Polo. Subsequently, he has designed several private villas, apartments and resorts.

In the absence of external views, a rectangular lightwell is carved from the center of the block.

Acknowledging the location of the expensive site that is surrounded by high-rise towers, it was a given that the clients, Radja Smutkojon, a manager of an international company, and his wife Ravee Purananda would require a huge amount of floor space. With incredible ingenuity, the architect has achieved 340 square meters (plot ratio 1:2), notwithstanding the restriction that the permitted height of the building should not exceed 15 meters. To accommodate this, he designed a 4.5-story structure (excluding carpark) that is built up to one meter from the site boundary on all sides. A glass elevator facilitates access to the upper floors.

A plunge pool is ingeniously incorporated in the design.

There are a small number of recessed windows on three sides of the cubist composition, but a rectangular lightwell ‘carved’ from the center permits daylight to enter. The main living areas facing the street have views of the city skyline and of a neighboring garden immediately opposite the site. A 10-meter-long plunge pool cantilevers over the carpark, and above it is a brown timberclad box (originally intended to be copper) projecting over the pool and main entrance.

Given the compact inward-orientated plan, there is a surprising sense of space and light in the house.

Architect Stefan Schlau has made up for what the house lacks in external vistas with a beautifully composed internal space. The interior is remarkably spacious, with a double-height living room that overcomes any possible sense of claustrophobia. The living room faces north so that there is minimum sunlight and solar gain in the living room, and this also allowed the windows to be clear glass. At dusk, as the lights of the city are switched on, there is a magical panorama.

The dining area exudes luxury living.

The condominium on the adjoining site has its air-conditioning coolers sited immediately adjacent to the swimming pool deck, with the consequent whine of fans. A waterfall has been introduced alongside the pool that effectively masks the noise.

The hall and the glass elevator.

In summary, House Jang is an artful infill urban residence that makes maximum use of a restricted site.

A magnifi cent doubleheight living space is the focus of the urban house.