This project is meant to provide a peaceful spot among hectic surroundings.  Located on the West side of Bangkok, this is a small house situated in the middle of a busy food market, serving customers for long hours a day, from late afternoon up to midnight.  

 

          Because the owner of this house also owns the food market, the parameters of the house, in fact, were then defined by the sales areas of the market from the very beginning.  As a result, the owner simply requires a great deal of privacy; however, he also needs to be able to observe the commercial activities from his house.

 

The Charm of Courtyard:

After receiving the project’s brief and visiting the site, we have consequently conducted our design by taking traditions of the inner courtyard characterized by many past civilizations as a design strategy. We believe that the courtyard can provide a good transition from the hectic and noisy environment outside the house to the calmness inside the living space.  Moreover, the courtyard can offer peaceful visuals as well as providing a natural ventilation effect.  So, the simple diagram is laid out by placing the courtyard at the center surrounded by living functions.  For the issue of seeing and not being seen, we carefully manage this house with a visual blinding effect.  We put a big ventilation block wall at the front and make a kind of tropical compact garden in the courtyard; which can potentially make the house unnoticeable from outside, but the owner can easily observe the market’s activities from inside.

 

The Gallery:

Another important requirement for this house we have to manage is a numerous owner’s artifacts inherited from his generation before him.  As the spaces are laid around the garden courtyard, characterized by the glass walls, we then make the interior enclosure with a visual contrast by leaving the solid walls opposite the glass.  These solid wall spaces allow the owner to place several old and new cabinets along the house’s circulation to present his artifact collections.  And the double volume space intentionally featured by a steel spiral staircase brings a vivid relationship between the garden courtyard and the gallery.