Molpasorn Shoowong Architecture Portfolio
(2015-2018)
I’m interested in the notion of “Public Space” and “the sense of community.”
While studying architecture and living in Bangkok, my hometown, I’m awared that Bangkokian lack of public space to enjoy their slowness in life or other perspective of life not including work. Bangkok is a car culture and consumerism city. It is full of department stores, cafes, markets, etc. Every single spaces are mostly filled up with consumering culture not producing culture or creativity. It still has less number of green space like parks that people can chill out and exercise, coworking space, library and learning space, etc. In my life, I wish to design in reality a good public space for a community in Bangkok, my hometown. I didn’t mean only for slums or poorer people, but for even Thai middle class like myself. I also call for a walkable quality and good public transportation for Bangkok. Good urban design will encourage human interaction evenmore. Public space allows people to share between each other, and learn new skills and knowledge. Having public space means individuals having “freedom” to express thoughts and also at the same time have to respect each other. The more freedom we have, the more democracy and happiness we gain, and the less inequality in our society. I hope my design skills can regenerate the sense of community for Bangkokian to become better.
Table of Contents 1
The Camping Barns
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Tsukiji Eco Waterfront District
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Brussels Waterfront Mixed-use Project
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Sampeng Street Intervention
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Otaku Pilgrimage Tourism, Akihabara
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“Radicalism” Style Lighthouse
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“Richard Neutra” Office + Copier Machine
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Architecture and Ecology Classwork
Cirriculum Vitae
Education 2014 - 2018
2017
2008 - 2014
Bachelor of Science in Architectural Design (1st Class Honor) INDA, Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand 1 Semester Exchange Program at Architecture Department, School of Science and Technology, Meiji University, Japan 7th - 12th Grade, Samsenwittayalai School, Thailand
Experience 2018
2 weeks School of Tomorrow Workshop led by Thammasat University, The 101 Percent Co., Ltd., Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Thailand Foundation
2018
1 month Content Creator Workshop led by Infographic Thailand, Like Me Co., Ltd., Thailand
2017
1 month UX, UI Designer internship at Fire One One Co., Ltd., Thailand
2017
1 month Academic Design Built for Community Project at Coffee Beans by Dao Factory Soi Pridi Banomyong 14, Thailand
2016
2 weeks Academic Design Built for Community Project at Tolox, Spain
2018
Student Works Exhibition Bangkok Design Week 2018
2017
Final Selections for Super Crits INDA Parade Exhibition
Exhibition
2015 / 2016 / 2017
Selecteded Works for Exhibition INDA Parade Exhibition
Skills Advance
Rhinoceros | Adobe Photoshop | Adobe Illustrator | Microsoft Office | Microsoft Powerpoint
Amateur
AutoCAD | Clip Studio Paint | Final Cut Pro | Vray Render | Microsoft Excels | Urban Sketching
Beginner
Grasshopper | Sketch Up | Adobe Indesign
Language Native
Thai
Fluent
English (TOEFL ibt 96/120)
Basic
Japanese (JLPT N5)
THE CAMPING BARNS old ones has been lost. In a broader scale, the program changed through season, while looking deeper, they are meant to be a pedagogical device that raise people’s awareness about the rice field associated environmental issues. From researching, I found out that during this process of growing rice, water and soil became polluted. The first reason is that at some point, the water remains in the fields too long and turn to have no oxygen. Second, fertilisers are put into the rice plants - if too much - remaining in the soil and water. Lastly, pescitides are used to
The Camping Barns are located in rice paddy fields of Tung Rangsit area, the outskirt of Bangkok offering spaces to accomodate camping activities as a coming of age ceremony for children, while also let farmers and local people relaxing and meeting inside as a public space for community when there’s no caming. Farmers can also store and dry rice in the tower after being harvested. Being artificially natural, the project has an ecosystemic condition, “regeneration” meaning elements are renewable through time after 1
kill rice predators such as birds, rats and insect can remain, again, in soil and water. If all these stuffs flow back into the water resources, it will create a polluted waste water, and this is very common in every rice paddy fields according to the Pollution Control Department of Thailand. The barn towers all contain infrastructures intervening the interior which treat runoff polluted water from the surrounding rice fields and produce electricity from rice husks, left-out waste from the process of rice milling. After harvesting the rice, farmers can take those crops to dry on provided structures, store them, mill them with traditional milling wheels to get eatable seeds and use the left-out waste from milling called rice husks to be the substance for producing self-generated electricity. Water can be purified by a treatment plant and send to the top water tank that act as a campfire space for the participants. This rooftop water tank or shining fountain that contains glowing bacteria suggesting that this is a clean water. Space around it is used for gathering at night, playing music, etc. 2
Above Synthetic Manifesto
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This page Diagram showing water infrastructures intervening the space Opposite page Top Interior Perspective Middle Left Five Functions of Facades
Moreover, the facade also serves 5 function for users - rice drying, humidity protection, rain protection, mosquito screen, and object hanging at anytime by their changeable quality. For the formal strategy, the tower endured lightness quality leaving the least footprint to the landscape. Using bamboo as a main support structure which is similar to the reference of the land diving tower containing redundant amount of pieces and possibility to insert useable space inside. Bamboo structure is seen as a performer for rigidity force. So, to make the structure more efficient, sort of cables are added to the light structure tower for stabilizing.
Bottom Left Zoom In Elevation View of the buildings Bottom Right Isometric view of one of the design of the tower
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Right “The Prometheus Camp“ Ritual Map
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Left “Tung Rangsit“ Context Map
Left Three Designs of The Camping Barns in Sections
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TSUKIJI ECO WATERFRONT DISTRICT This page Diagramatic Distirct Site Plan
This project aims to develop a new urban design for the old site of Tsukiji Fish Market, Tokyo since this wholesale will be relocated to other site by 2020. The outer market area (dense blocks on the northeast edge) that has shops and restaurants will still be kept. The main theme of my new design is maintaining the history - keeping the original structure of the wholesale market which is the long curving roof building and coming up with the vision of sustainable food district. Since Japanese food industry relies a lot on importing food from other countries, the new urban design for this district is developed in the concept of a new food district that aims to be a prototype district that food can be grown, produced, consumed and recycled as a cycle in the area.
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Above Design Site Plan Physical Model Below View from Sumida River
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Organic vegetables can be grown in the Urban Farming Tower that is distributed around the district by covering the food consumption in each program near the tower. The district are basically divided into 3 main areas by the small canals that pass through. A mor modern area with highrise buildings such as offices, hotel, cooking school, department store, urban farming tower and museums are on the land beside the main road. Small shops are extended from outer market area to connect with small shops under the preserved roof which is so-called the food island. This area consisted of various cafes, restaurant and small commercial stores. For the waterfront island by the Sumida river, there are mostly low rise buildings which won’t block the view of the preserved roof from the river and green public space that allow people to enjoy outdoor activities and events.
Below Street view in High rise Area
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“Tung Rangsit“ Context Map
“Tung Rangsit“ Context Map
“Tung Rangsit“ Context Map
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BRUSSELS WATERFRONT MIXED-USE PROJECT
This project aims to develop the site beside the river in Anderlecht, Brussels of Belgium into a mixed-use real estates that consisted of programs - housing, commercial area and museum for at least. In the present, the site is not quite safe even if it’s a part of capital city. So, a liveable district is designed along with the benefit of riverfront. In physical context, there is a tram station in the north of the site, and a new train station will be constructed on the east of the site. All programs are designed to connect to each other and to these 2 transportation hubs. Looking at the plan, there are about 4 zones - commercial area containing shops and cafe beside the river, housing and residential facilities in the northeast, the museum and cultural auditorium building facing the turning point of the river, and the outdoor public pool and field in the south that go along with the riverside. The 3 main indoor area are connected with walkable rooftops.
Top Perspective Street View Bottom Site plan
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Big communal space for events and descending staircase seats are located below the lifted up theater. This is one of the space that meet the main concept of the project - maximize outdoor interactions and enjoy the riverside. The materiality of the projects mainly consists of bricks which represents the traditional way of making Brussels buildings mixing with metal panels as facades, concrete as structures and glass walls to get natural light and blending indoor and outdoor. Green spaces with grasses and trees are all around the site and they can be adapted for helding outdoor events. Sports can also be played on the green strips along the river with the public pool on the edge. Top right View from the walkable rooftop Right View along the commercial street beside the river Below FInal design physical model
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This page Site Sections
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Top Fourth floor plan Bottom Third floor plan
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Top Second floor plan Bottom First floor plan
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SAMPENG STREET INTERVENTION This is a project that aims to renovate a specific site in Old Town Bangkok to maximize its utilitarian function and beauty. This project actually started from phase 1 - researching and documenting interested utility elements in Old Town Bangkok and city of Mumbai in which I chose the topic of “Storage” and “Storage and Display”. Examples of the booklets made out in this steps are shown in page 27 -28. After that, I actually studied a real piece of architecture that can accommodate the function of storage and display such as Chidori wood technique and GC Prostho museum by Kengo Kuma as a reference for developing my own idea further. In my final project, I’m interested to develop a grid spatial system of storage and display. With lumber materiality, it is light enough for a person to modify the piece that has joints and strong enough the withstand the load. I chose to renovate Palitpon alley in Sampeng shopping district in the old town Bangkok which has chaotic environment all day and is full of giftshops.
Opposite page Street storage structure components diagram Right Merchandise size comparison map Below 1:1 scale lumber physical model
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I wish to solve the existing conflicting urban circulation of the site by design another layer of facade storage and display for each shop on the footpath so that people could walk on the footpath enjoy shopping and no need to walk on the road that cars and pickups circulate all the time. This new design storage are made with lumbers system put together with bolts and nuts in a specific way and dimension. Shopkeepers can easily modify the shelf according to their merchandise sizes(shops vary from plasticware to small dolls) and functional uage such as for hanging stuffs, shelving, etc. Through the design process,
I explored with making 1:1 mockup with real materials and studied how to make good details and readable detail drawings. The project might not efficiently solve the weather condition of Bangkok but at the first level, it create new facade of ornamentation for the old shophouse in the site.
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Right Interior view on the footpath rendering Middle Diagramatic Site Plan (Left - existing condition, Right after condition) Bottom Street facade view rendering
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This page Components Detail Drawing Next page Left Detail Drawing of Structure Right Detail Drawing of Section
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OTAKU PILGRIMAGE TOURISM, AKIHABARA as it contains various commercial stores and advertisement billboards producing an fantasy isolated world from outside. Pilgrimage trip of otakus to Akihabara for a week to a month is held in Akihabara and housing should be design to accomodate them. As a reult, the project came out as living units where individuals could express themselves freely and public spaces where they could meet different people and share their interests through various activities such as cheering idols dancing or competing video games.
This is a project from the topic of Chronoshome or Home of Time(Chronos.) It tends to explore habitats that people lived in for a different period of time - hours and days, months, years and decades. In my case is “month� which demonstrate the act of living from weeks to months in a temporal home. My selection social groups are otakus or Japanese Geeks who are in love with Japanese Pop Culture (focusing on idols, games, comics and animations.) Akihabara, an area in Tokyo is chosen for the context and site which is a heaven for these geeks 29
This semester project begin with researching about the social group - Otakus and the physical context - Akihabara and produce an intentional map that help summarize the characteristics and ideas about them.(page 34) The next step is then to propose the design of the room. The first proposal (page 31 - top) has a function that each living unit moves through different connections to make users expereince social interaction and get to do different activities so that they can feel of how to be each types of otakus from idol otaku, and game otaku until manga and anime otaku.
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Above Synthetic Manifesto summarizing the whole idea and design
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This page Plan diagrams showing programs and infrastructure Opposite page Top First proposal of the room design in sectional perspective Bottom Interior view of the building showing the guest cheering idol cover dances
The final procedure is to design the whole housing that employed all the living units. At this time, moveable units ideas are cancelled and turn into just fixed ones. The building actually located at the junction to indicate itself as the entrance gate to Akihabara and being a billboard and monument to the district. Some of the units faced out to show off the identity to the outside and some units face inside so that everyone can see what’s going on and who is who. The arrangement of this environment also encourage them to interact to each other and get to know each other more and more. To get the benefit from the void space in the middle, public spaces of each activities and event halls are placed here. The program zoning and infrastructures are shown in building plans and sections.
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Above Section showing programs in each floor and the surrounding context Left Isonometric view of the housing building
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Left Social group research map Below Akihabara context map
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“RADICALISM” STYLE LIGHTHOUSE same time and I personally think that these ideas , now, needs to be rethink in our period of time. Example of drawings and diagrams on page 38 are elements that I designed myself. For example, the Surface Infinity, a universal surface is a rethink of what walls, floors and ceilings are. They doesn’t need to be divided into layers and planes, and they can be connected as one and changeable sue to the users’ need. Then the vocabulary used to called them can be disappeared. Another example is the Pixel Stairs which contains steps that are programmed to be changed all the time and also based on the users sometimes. So, users won’t just take a walk in a straight linear but maybe zigzag and disorder due to the steps. These two elements are then used in the next step further in my design of the lighthouse.
Radicalism or Radical Architecture is an architecture style started around 1960s to be opposed to Modernism and the World of Consumerism and Mass Production in which creativity is only limited to something constructed and nonfuturistic. The architects of this style such as Archigram, Superstudio and Archizoom tend to propose a new strategy for creating architecture that no one has never thought before that basically contains 3 main concepts - Limitless, Egalitarian and opposed to Consumerism and Capitalism - see details in the drawings. One of the important work demonstrating the style idea is called the Plug-in City by Archigram which is an urban scale project and an adaptable city due to the on-going time, the needs of the users and the changing technology. During the first phase of the semester project, I studied about them in detail and produce maps and diagrams to summarize about the style. After that, I take some of the characteristics and elements of Radicalism to think further and redesign a new architectural elements such as circulation, aperture and structure. In the idea of Radicalism, these designed elements seemed to be futuristic, yet functional and creative at the
This page Floor plan drawing of Radicalism lighthouse Opposite page Exterior rendering and collages presenting the lighthouse
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My final project is designing a small scale architecture, lighthouse in Radicalism style. The site is at an island in the territory of Spain at the edge of the cliff. The lighthouse employed changeable staircase and the surface design to make the mesh screen skin of the steel structure. The stairs and surface transitional form shape the space and usage inside to be different from typical design of lighthouse. It is also special in terms of the light source, the main function of the lighthouse in which use LED screen facade instead of a typical lamp and it can also portray advertisement on the screen to generate different usage of surrounded area to that area such as being a concert space or picnic space - making people rethink and being an egalitarian space that have many possibilities at the same time. The big rendering of the exterior view of the previous page are made in a technique of realistic mixing with collages as I take the same strategy of making images as what architects like Archizoom of Radicalism style did.
Top Interior view of the lighthouse Bottom Section Drawing of the lighthouse
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Above Architectural elements designed in Radicalism style
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Above “Elements” Summary map of Radical Architecture
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Top Radicalism Style Taxonomy map Bottom Evolution in “Anthropometry” map
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This page Example of Radical Architecture Project called Plug-in City by Archigram
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“RICHARD NEUTRA” OFFICE+COPIER MACHINE elements such as deep overhangs, steel spider legs, flat roof, terrace, patio, glass walls, etc. After researching, I study Neutra in the detail of the process of designing a project and have to create a “copier” or “copy machine” as a tool to demonstrate a design algorithm and an example of result according to his style. In this case, Neutra focuses strictly on his client’s needs through the process of psychoanalysis picked up from Sigmund Freud, a world famous psychologist. As a result, I build a copier that employed a questionaire program to scan what the users really need. Users that play my machine will have to use the answers from the questionaires and follow instructions on a “booklet” I made in order to create their own 3D house on ArchiCAD and decorate a drawing on photoshop. On page 47-48, there are pictures of program interface, booklets and examples of results. Algorithms of building this “copier” are on a map on page 45. Finally, on the last phase of the project, I designed an office for Richard Neutra in the present time, 21st century - from choosing a site until the program inside. I chose the site at Palm Desert, Riverside
This is a semester project that assigned students to study about one specific architect in the whole history. My selection is Richard Neutra, an architect of 20th century shaping Modernism in the west of USA. He is well-known for his theory of ‘biorealism’ - blending human, architecture and nature in harmony beacuse he believed that human need to orient themselves to surroundings by all senses. So, his works often consisted of pure clean material like steel column, concrete, mirror, silver painting, glass, etc. built in modernist skeleton structure in an orthogonal form influenced by architects like Frank Lloyd Wright and Adolf Loos creating space as “sensorium” for daily living. Classic project designed by him is The Kaufmann House, 1947. In the house, we can see his architectural language as Opposite page Ground floor plan of the designed office This page Interior view of the client meeting room showing the idea of blurring inside and outside
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Opposite page Top Interior view of the director office Bottom Copier machine operating processs This page Top Sections showing program Bottom Example of result from running the copier machine on the last process of Photoshop
County on the South of California because Neutra’s desire on experimenting Biorealism design would match the natural landscape of mountain and desert the area and the dry climate that match the Californian Modernism Houses. The office could also target clients who can afford the psychoanalysis and design costs. Architectural elements mentioned before are employed to fit the style of Neutra such as spider legs, roof overhangs and horizontal dominant spatial quality to blend in with the landscape. Some special programs like science department and experimental room for Virtual Reality has been assigned in the design as a space to test the designed space just as how Neutra took much attention to this in his original projects. Morever, with his good attention to clients, there is a room speciically for client meeting with a great view of the desert landscape. As you can see on the monochrome perspective, these drawings used the technique of black and white contrasts to emphasize the quality of narrow and wide, open and enclosed space in the project.
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This page Top Questionaire program interface Middle + Bottom Archicad program interface showing the workspace to build a house according to user’s need Opposite page Top A booklet of intructions of how to use copier machine Middle Examples of tools interface in Archicad Bottom Example of resulting model in Archicad
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Architecture and Ecology Classwork “There is no waste in the ecosystem� is a quote I remembered well from my instructor. Just like architecture, we have to carefully design with sustainability to serve the mother nature. Architecture and Ecology class is one of my favorite class other than History of Architecture. I learned about other perspective in architecture other than final outcome and typical research in studio that is the aspect of ecology associated. Architecture doesn’t need to be beautiful by its looking but have to solve problem well in various aspects escpecially ecology and environment. As a beginner to landscape and urban design at that time, I get to know the idea of urban area or the city that it is not self-sustained. It has to
rely on infrastructure outside the city. So, in the course, I get to research on infrastructures and system that has to do with architecture through creating a map as shown in these pages such as the urban context of the rice paddy field area of Rangist, Bangkok which consists of both growing urbanization and agricultural area. Not only researching but I learn to think further of how to design the system for a specific project with the knowledge of ecology such as in the opposite page, the system is meant to purify waste water from the rice paddy field. This is not the only one true solution, but come from my own idea and research.
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Opposit page Tung Rangsit Map showing urbanization Right Pipeline Transportation Ssytem to Airport of Bangkok Below Stabilizing Pond and Constructed Wetland System for rice paddy field waste water treatment
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Molpasorn Shoowong (Wine) 136/4 Soi A8 Summakorn Village Ramkamhaeng Road Saphansung, Bangkok 10240, Thailand +66844359983 harugijkw@gmail.com Hobbies Drawing and Sketching on Paper, Digital Painting / Writing Online Comic and Content/ Reading Manga, Pop Science books, Susepense Fictions / Listening to Japanese Music / Watching Documentaries / Travelling and Exploring