This modern classic house was inspired by the classic style of architecture, but adapted for a simpler look to fit contemporary ways of life. The interior is spacious, with a very high ceiling.
/// Thailand ///
Story: Supachat Boontang /// Photos: Sitthisak Namkham /// Style: Somboon Kringkrai /// Architecture: The Emperor House Co., Ltd. /// Interior Decoration: 8 Interior Architect /// Landscape Architecture: Little Tree by Siritvit Riubamrung and Charturong Khunkong
To make the house look warmer and more welcoming, the designers pared down the size of large areas by using arches for demarcation.
Cream and white, light colors relaxing to the eyes, were used in unique combination with a different color in each room, creating charm and interest with purple, emerald green, and gray.
The interior decor doesn’t clearly indicate any particular style, but retains a classic foundation, or better said, a hint of American classic, reducing decorative elements for a more elegant presence, yet still warm and inviting.
Furniture placement emphasizes a balance consistent throughout the house and garden. There is minimal ornamentation, but everything is arranged correctly for the house to come off as posh, beautiful, and well set up.
Nature is brought in boldly to supplement the classic house. There is a wonderfully shady and green English garden with a stylish gazebo for relaxation and socializing. All in all, this is a modern classic home truly shaded by nature.
Our team meets the owners of this modest-sized condominium. With beaming smiles, the owners open the door of their little perfect room for two to greet us.
“We met our designer all because of Room Magazine,” one of the owners said. She was referring to the owner and designer of a Parisian-style suite featured on the magazine’s March 2012 issue.
“I had already bought the place, but didn’t know where to start. Every day I dropped by at a bookshop to buy books and magazines on interior decoration, bring them home and talk with Aor and my parents. This went on and on, until we saw that edition of Room. Well, for me that was love at first sight. And Aor felt the same way.”
There were plenty of problems to be solved with this room. Accommodations and adjustments had to be made for their lifestyles and personalities. Bell works in the fashion business, and likes putting on makeup while watching the morning news. Aor gets up later. So they put a vanity and a television outside the bedroom.
Bell doesn’t see herself as full of feminine sweetness. Her favorite color is “pigeon grey,” which has a hint of blue. But she also wants the place to be a comfortable one for Aor, her other half, too. The couple then trusted in the skills of their designer and let him run his own ideas to work on the transformation of the space.
The end result was more than satisfying. When they had their first look at the designs and models, they were delighted. “It was really gorgeous! Aor and I made almost no changes from his original design. It was exactly what I’d had in mind, in both design and function. We both saw it as the perfect solution.”
The path from design to finished work wasn’t all smooth sailing. Little problems popped up along the way. Sometimes it was the contractor not sticking to the specs. Other times the details or materials weren’t exactly what they had pictured. “The flooring with black and white chess pattern, some parts of the white stone turned yellow, or had a little stained, but I left them that way. If things weren’t too ugly, we were OK with them. Actually, I was impatient and wanted to move in really fast.” (laugh)
Maybe it’s destiny that brought Bell and Aor to fell in love with the Parisian-style studio. But beyond the destiny, it’s the matter of efforts and understandings that make the perfect room for them.
the play: space drawing By Paramodel /// A Site-Specific Exhibition /// Thong Lor Art Space
/// Thailand /// Story: Bundaree D. /// Information: The Japan Foundation, Bangkok
/// Photos:Paramodel, Nattapoom Pongyen
An art exhibition of a unique kind is going on right now from November 26 to December 25 at the Thong Lor Art Space (open everyday from 2pm.-9pm. except Tuesdays and Wednesdays). Organized by The Japan Foundation, Bangkok and Thong Lor Art Space. the site-specific art show will set your imagination on fire.
On view are bewitchingly beautiful works of art by a duo of Japanese artists, known as Paramodel. Showing a slice of their imaginative paradise, the pair plays with their artistic media in a way so fascinating that it is a class of its own. Based on a site-specific concept, the exhibition is so rare it seems paradoxical in the eye of the world.
Paramodel has won critical acclaim regionally and internationally. The duo is putting their works of art on display for the first time in Thailand this year. Their works encompass a variety of genres, from photography to sculptures to paintings to videos, most of which involve large-scale installations and unique space utilizations, hence the term site-specific. The duo’s artistic works are known for depicting scenes and various polarities that exist in everyday life. Their signature lies in using familiar media, which they call “toys,” to communicate ideas through artistic compositions. The materials include blue plastic pipes, miniature vehicles, plastic models, and motifs. With these objects and decorative hacks, they create blueprints of paradise whilst underscoring life’s paradoxes. Some of their creations come in three-dimensional graffiti, diorama, drawing, mural, and landscape.
One of the Paramodel duo, Yasuhiko Hayashi will stay in Bangkok for a month, during which he will demonstrate the three-dimensional space concept at the Thonglor Art Space using ordinary media, such as industrial pipes and “Plarails” or pieces of plastic railing.
Their signature materials; namely, pipes and plarails, are intended to create visual impacts, the first thing we look toward in any kind of artistic compositions. For some, Paramodel’s work may look like a construction site. For others, it may symbolize scenes of a paradoxical paradise, or visualizations of our complex social behaviors and relationships with one another. Some may find it interesting in the lead-up to for the Holiday Season. In the shortest word possible, it’s time you set your imagination free. Mark your calendar!
For more information: https://www.facebook.com/events/1708509662800769/permalink/1717320201919715/
Landry Dunand is a French photographer, who has come to call Thailand home. Having traveled extensively, from France to Afghanistan to Thailand, he captured moments of people’s lives and local cultures through his film cameras. Dunand will be sharing his years of experience in two concurrent art exhibitions, which art lovers shouldn’t miss.
/// Thailand ///
The dual art exhibitions, “Silver Fermentation” and “Glided Blue,” will be held at the Neilson Hays library throughout this December. Interestingly, both of them are in monochromic tones.
“Glided Blue” is a collection of cyanotypes. The cyan blue photos are produced by placing a negative or an object directly on a coated paper, and let the sunlight through. The traditional photographic process can be dated back to the 18th century.
“Silver Fermentation” is a series of silver gelatin prints. Dunand developed all the photos himself in his home darkroom.
For Dunand, his main inspirations are people, the nature and its constant changing conditions. His photos are mostly of people in Thai local villages and their natural surroundings. “All of the works presented here are heavily influenced by my environment. I live in a village, where nature is extremely present. I can feel and see nature growing and dying around me. The weather and time makes it constantly evolve. So I get a lot of inspirations from nature and local life.”
“People are still living in nature here. Most of the aunties around me are cultivating their yards for daily needs. Every morning you can see people picking up Dok Anchan (butterfly peas), collecting coconut for the milk and meat, fishing for dinner, and growing various vegetables. I like the self-sustaining life, where what is around is enough to live. People can live much simpler, more peaceful life when they are not distracted by consumerist environments.”
The outcomes of interesting topics and unusual techniques culminated in these wonderful monochromic photos, which art lovers shouldn’t miss.
This unusual home with intriguing ideas hidden inside belongs to Vazzan Tirangkura. With a big smile, he told us the story behind it. “It’s called The Tinman House because I was impressed with Tin Woodman, the fictional character who was looking for his heart in L. Frank Baum’s novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”
Vazzan had looked for the right location for years before he came across this piece of land by accident. “I was driving one afternoon and got lost. As luck would have it, I made a turn into this side street and found a house listed for sale right there in front of me. The land was 53 square wah (212 sq. m.). I thought about it for a night and went back to settle the deal first thing the next day.”
After a consult with Jun Sekino of Junsekino Architect and Design, the rest was history. Jun Sekino was his favorite architect, who continued to translate his ideas into reality.
“Vazzan wanted this house built for a small family with two kids.” He was single at the time. It sounded ridiculously dreamy to me. But once finished, the Tinman House reflected both the homeowner’s character and a living space that’s raw, something in its true state not pretending to be more palatable than it actually is,” said Jun Sekino.
The rectangular house plan offers 415 square meters of space for practical and effective use. The stairway works as a core ventilation stack. The linear interior hallway distributes functions to all the rooms.
The first floor has a carport, a welcome area, living room, dining room and kitchen, while the second is divided into a library, workroom, dressing room and guest bedroom. The quiet and more secluded third floor holds a master bedroom and children’s bedroom. On the fourth floor lies a sky garden with a peaceful lounge offering privacy.
On the whole, it’s a creation based on form-follows-functions and ergonomic concepts. For best results, the homeowner participated in planning every step of the way. He questioned every detail so that all the building designs performed the function tailored to his needs.
Minimalist design appears not only in its look, but also in the house’s functionality. There are no door knobs. Instead, bolts are applied for every door in the house. Isn’t that exciting? It’s been a while since we last saw a bar that slid into a socket to fasten the door and window.
Overall, the decoration is done in a loft style that brings out the true nature of materials. Reclaimed timber recycled from the old demolished house find new purposes as a gigantic bookshelf (0.60 x 29 x 3 meters in size), a work desk, a bedside table and flooring materials, to name but a few.
There are plenty of ideas that take modern loft decor to the next level. Built-in furniture is all custom made, pushed up against the wall to create a roomy living space. The pieces are made from industrial supplies, for example, water pipes, metal plates, expanded metal grating, and checker plates.
More so than anything else, it’s the use of primary colors that adds a refreshing change to the home — red, yellow and Majorelle blue.
Taking everything into account, the building external envelope is clear and simple, while interior design is lively and fun. All the spaces and functions are interconnected to serve everyday needs. No doubt it’s a perfect home for a small modern family.
Sharing his slice of paradise, Vazzan said: “Because I travel a lot, I’m very happy when I have a chance to stay home. I love every corner in this house. Each of them is designed having me as its center. It’s thoughtfully devised to be simple, practical and timeless. Even in the next 20 to 30 years, it will always be a contemporary home.”
Before we say goodbye, Vazzan has a piece of advice for those planning to build a home of their own. “The owner has to take part in the design, because he or she is the heart of the house — The Tinman House included. The heart of a home is borne by its owner.”
Two siblings, Somboon and Poonsuk, have always been hard-core coffee lovers. They decided to make use of a plot of land belonging to their father by turning it into a cozy café on the bank of the beautiful Kok River in Chiang Rai.
“The original design was a raw, wooden-focused because there were only coffee and few Northern dishes on the menu. Later the architect suggested that the café would be too big for just a small number of dishes. At the time, a senior acquaintance of ours came up with European food and cake recipes. So, we toned down the café design from a raw look to a French vintage style.” Kulnaree Suralertrangsan, Somboon’s wife told us.
“We knew nothing about garden landscaping. Luckily, someone introduced us to Suthathip and Isara. Customers often asked us about the style of our garden. We had to go back to Suthathip and Isara to learn more. They said it was called Southern French style. The design coincided with the café by chance.”
The garden is semi-formal in style with a black water fountain at the center. It’s an outstanding feature there. The garden floor is covered in black carpet stones with fine-grained gravels filling the gaps in between. Neat, well-trimmed shrubs, notably Fukian tea trees (Carmona Retusa), thrive along the edges. Nearby colorful flowering plants abound. They include Chinese violets (Asystasia gangetica), cat’s whiskers (Orthosiphon aristatus), snow roses (Serissa) and shrubby bush clovers (Lespedeza bicolor). Their vibrant colors provide a welcome contrast with the surrounding hardscape.
Different types of pine trees are also grown here, for example, creeping junipers (Juniperus procumbens), Italian cypresses (Cupressus sempervirens L. ‘Stricta’), Khasi pines (Pinus kesiya Royle ex Gordon) and Orientali arborvitae (Thuja orientalis Endl), which go together well with a European-style garden and thrive in cool weather in the northern part of Thailand.
There is a seating area next to the front courtyard, which serves as a reception area and a popular photo spot. Table sets await customers who prefer dining alfresco on a nearby stone-on-grass lawn. Meantime, cool breezes keep the spacious river-view terrace comfortable all day long. It’s a lifestyle in close touch with nature. Herbs, such as rosemary and mint that thrive on the premises, are picked fresh everyday for use as ingredients in food and drinks on the menu.
Besides the relaxing atmosphere, the Northern cuisine is the main attraction here. Those mouthwatering dishes made the traditional way combine to make this café an enchanting place to be. Its first-class recipe is a heritage from Somboon’s great grandmother, who was a housekeeper for Princess Dara Rasmi in times past. For visitors to Chiang Rai, spending an afternoon here is obviously an unforgettable experience.
Surrounded by mountains and the clean, pure beauty of nature, the owner of this lovely home in the hills feels there is no better place for him and his family to have a wonderfully peaceful retirement life. No more do they have to travel abroad for relaxation.
The house is modeled after residences in the Cotswolds, an ancient rural area in the south of England, and adapted to suit the weather and available building materials in Thailand. With a steep, narrow-eaved roof, it has arched entryways and many windows. The top floor is really an attic, with the roof as ceiling. There is a fireplace and chimney for use in the cold season. The charm of the house shows in the craftsmanship.
Outer walls are of stone, which provides good insulation, and the longer the house stands, the more classic its beauty will be. The interior is open and comfortable. Glass windows and doors open wide for garden views, besides catching the breeze and letting in natural light during the day.
Colors are earth tones, warm and relaxing. The garden is designed to match the style of the house: warm and natural-looking, after the fashion of English gardens.
Where the home environment is naturally lush and green and the weather is cool and comfortable almost the whole year, each day of life brings deep relaxation and comfort.
The In-Between Arts Festival 2016 is being held at the Hin Bus Depot Art Center, A heritage building in Penang from November 26 to 30, 2016
/// Malaysia ///
Information : http://www.hinbusdepot.com
#HinbetweenAF
What we eat tells a story not just about us as individuals, but also about the histories that make up our wider culture. Food is thus intimately linked to the arts. The IbAF works in partnership with other organizations in Penang to foster collaborations between artists and food professionals. By approaching food through art, and by highlighting the artistry of food, the IbAF frames itself as stimulating and inspiring: a positive approach that gets people thinking about the role of food in our society and leads to innovative ideas about people’s everyday lifestyle choices.
The festival’s location in Penang allows us to take advantage of the island’s resources as a centre of artistic creation as well as its global reputation as a magnet for high-quality food. At its core, this year’s IbAF creates a platform to demonstrate the uniqueness of local food and art through the notion of sustainability. Following the food chain from farm to fork, we address the production, distribution, preparation and consumption of food. In doing so, festival goers come together to support locally harvested food products and culinary traditions, and raise awareness of living healthier lifestyles.
The IbAF 2016 organizes an enticing program of events, including mouth-watering food presentations, a variety of food and art workshops, a food zine exhibition, a bookstall and more. At the same time, it offers an opportunity to showcase small businesses and artists to help them flourish and reach a wider clientele. The sheer variety of exciting activities will also further enhance the attractiveness of Penang’s food and art culture in the long run.
The impeccably proportioned home is a homey condo in a skyscraper-studded Thonglor District. Ten years ago, his parents bought 70 square meters worth of room here to use for rental income. As the room deteriorated over time, the owner found a chance to transform it into a home of his own.
Thanks to the owner’s job as marketing manager, working in real estate put him in touch with Arujit Lertkitja, interior designer for Coquo Studio. When Oat sounded him out about taking on this project, he got back a slew of ideas for a dream house makeover: “I didn’t know what the style I wanted was called, so I opened up magazines looking for keywords, and sent Oh over two hundred reference photos. Oh’s suggestion was to add sweet details by selecting lighter shades of wood since my wife would be living here, too.”
From the reference pictures and many heart-to-heart chats with the designer, the two came up with the “industrial loft” style. From a two-bedroom flat, it was converted into a studio. Just one bedroom was left. Walls were demolished to connect the kitchen, dining room, and living room, while doors were put in to clearly define private areas: bedroom, bathroom, and dressing room.
The old condo ceiling was completely removed to display the newly installed pipe and conduit systems. Besides adding the rawness, the removal also raised 20 centimeters from the original ceiling height. They used materials with rough surfaces, such as white brick and black window frame, all for a slick and modern look on a budget.
To add warmth and reduce the room’s harsh roughness, the owner and the designer kept the teak floor, but scoured and polished to make it pale and bring more light into the room. Oh decided on built-in furniture with some movable teak pieces, planed them down and painted them white for a softer look.
These fit in nicely as a set when mixed in with furniture from old houses, which the owner himself had searched out and selected.
“I was consulting with the designer about furniture all the time. Before buying, I sent pictures to get her comments and suggestions. Sometimes she’d run into something really suitable, and just buy it herself in advance.”
Besides the totally pleasing décor, the impressions of this house left us with the kind that really makes a place a “home,” in contrast to just a “place to live”. The word “homey” really fits the surprisingly mellow ambience of this industrial loft residence.
/ Story: Ekkarat Laksanasamrit / English version: Peter Montalbano /
/ Photographs: Sitthisak Namkham /
A person’s sense of proportion in creating a house to suit his own lifestyle can have energizing results. We recently visited a modern steel framed home in Bangkok’s Viphavadi Rangsit area that illustrated this. Nutt Chenyawanit, owner of Tin Home Toy merchandise, designed this house as a reflection of his identity.
From details of home décor, such as galvanized iron and stylish plant containers, to the overall house design, we saw a modern steel framed home that retained the flavor of Tropical architecture.
Open and relaxed in a traditional house style reduced to essentials, with a high pitched gable roof, extended eaves and awnings for sun and rain protection, this house with a modern appeal looks the epitome of good design, one that holds the secret to what makes people happy in life. An it looks fun to live in, too.
We asked the homeowner for his thoughts on design. He explained: “We like high ceilings; low ones feel cramped. The living room and stairwell area reaches up a full two stories, and elsewhere on the ground floor ceilings are generally three meters or higher. On the second floor, ceilings follow the roof slope, for the most part.”
The exception is the master bedroom, which has a standard ceiling height. “Bedrooms with high ceilings feel too buoyant,” he said.
The Tin Home Toy office building next door, built in a similar style, was here before the house and now is separated from it by a swimming pool. Nutt favors architecture with steel-based frames that give it a raw cool modern style.
The metal post-and-beam design for floor and roof here made for rapid construction and quick cleanup. It presents a stylish façade of show brick walls and glass panels.
Extended eaves, large doors and windows provide good ventilation and make the house comfortable for living. Metal frameworks minimize the need of support posts for the extended eaves, freeing more space for parking. High ceilings allow warm air to rise and exit through upstairs windows.
Usable space on the ground floor holds the living room, stairwell, dining room, kitchen, and service areas like a storeroom and laundry. Upstairs consists of bedrooms and a workroom. Hallways are at least 2.5 meters wide for a spacious feel.
Walking around, a visitor has the sense that each space is made for specific purpose, some for children, some for moving around in comfort, some for convenience.
A closer look at the details reveals a “set aside” concept that reflects the way good judgements are made. In this particular case, it shows in design innovations such as high ceilings that bring the sort of happiness and contentment we find in this modern steel framed home.
Architect: Nutt Chenyawanit and Jirayut Chaiyajamrunphon
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