4 minute read
DYNAMIC VIEWS
IN THE SOUTHERN THAI PROVINCE, A BANGKOK-BASED WELL KNOWN ARCHITECTURAL FIRM, AYUTT AND ASSOCIATES DESIGN (AAD) COMPLETED THE PROJECT OF A SELF-SUSTAINABLE RESIDENCE, IMPLANTED WITH AN INDIVIDUAL NATURAL ECOSYSTEM PLANNED TO BECOME A PART OF A LARGER URBAN ECOLOGY AND A SOLUTION FOR NEXT GENERATION OF HOUSING.
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he first-floor level is designated to be a “garden villa” guest unit. Visitors can choose to access this guest suite by passing through the main foyer or entering the unit immediately through a side door, located adjacent to the waterfall. The rest of the living spaces which need more privacy and security, reserved only to the house’s owners, are placed on the higher floors. On the second floor, the architects placed a swimming pool along with the family living space to leave the most open area on the ground floor for landscaping and maintaining the house owners’ privacy. This creates a new sensory experience of nestling the seamless infinity pool among the clouds of tree leaves, creating a visual connection to the sky beyond, thanks also to the floor-to-ceiling windows. One can touch and enjoy being among the greenery and a blue sky while dipping in the pool. AAd design team furthermore proposed a different type of room arrangement that each floor will be functioned completely within itself. Each living unit is equipped with all the functions needed for a suite such as a bathroom, kitchen and pantry, garden, and terrace. The third-floor unit that rises above the tree canopy has a view towards a pristine landscape nearby the Suvarnabhumi airport.
By putting all the living spaces on the upper floors, all the rooms are acting like a treehouse. Tree leaves and bushes not only provide blooming refreshment for the residents, but also serve as a natural buffer, protecting the house from the outsiders’ eyes. The facades of the living room are still maintaining the signature of AAd’s façade design: using the air gap and perforated aluminum panels to relieve the house from being heated as well as allowing sunlight and air ventilation to pass through. When measuring the
temperature during summer season, these panels help cooling down the 39 degrees Celsius outside to be at 26 degrees inside. The graphic of the façade holes is creatively punched imitating to the overlaid tree leaves. During daytime, when the sunlight shines in the room, it will create the same effect similarly to sitting underneath the tree and absorbing the sunlight that shines through the leaf layers. The sizes of the holes are also determined accordingly to the usage of the function inside. For example,
the holes of the living-room perforated facades are punched larger at the standing level and the couch-seating level, while the holes at the sleeping level inside the bedroom are punched smaller in order to secure privacy. At night, when the internal light shine through these holes, the living quarter will become a lantern, leading the way home. However, with AAd’s careful design, the outsiders will not be able to see what is inside due to the level of these holes punched.
As one of the house’s owners is a psychologist who is in need of a space to meditate, the designer decides to place the Buddha pavilion among the garden, in the middle of the land plot. This is to maximize the advantages of having surrounded by nature. In general Thai culture, architects always use the left-over space of the house to become a shrine and tend to careless about making the space breathable. Therefore, by making the Buddhist shrine a garden pavilion and enveloping it with transparent glazing panels, this will make the room still be engaged with other functions, at the same time, remaining peaceful atmosphere. The pavilion is also covered with the steel-rod rigid frames, which create an effect of frame mirroring, making the room elevations to be opaque one could hardly see what is inside. With this project, the design team interprets this white house similarly to the white canvas that when the owners move into the house, they can start to create their own painting by planting colorful trees and flowers. As time goes by, the greenery will swallow the white background, meeting the expectation which the architects want the family to grow old peacefully and naturally as the trees grow along with the house.
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