Minimalist House / A Fusion of Thai and Japanese Styles

Minimalist House / A Fusion of Thai and Japanese Styles

Minimalist House / A Fusion of Thai and Japanese Styles

A simple décor, yes, but this minimalist house is full of ideas that bring intimate bonding to a compact family.

/// Thailand ///
Story: Montra /// Photos: Nanthiya, Damrong /// Style: Praphaiwadee /// Design: Ornchuma Saraya

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Little garden on the balcony: the family’s favorite spot, featuring a bench with planters set at different levels.

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This 141-square-meter residential space belongs to a mother and her daughter who share a love of Japanese minimalism. “Both mother and daughter like the clean look of Japanese woodwork for the neat and relaxing feeling it gives the house,” said Ornchuma.

Their preference appeared simple enough, but in practice, renovation wasn’t all that easy. Ornchuna had to get rid of all the walls and redivide the whole space without harming the condominium’s structural integrity. She attaches a lot of value to using wood in the Japanese style: interior decoration isn’t just a question of adding furniture. She applied her special knowledge to the living area to create clear divisions of usable space with a pleasing furniture arrangement.

Decorative wood-framed ceiling panels create a feeling of warmth. The former design was a flat expanse of ceiling, light-colored to give the appearance of width. The slender-legged furniture doesn’t busy the room with lines, and matches the floor color, giving the room a more connected and still expansive look.
The slender-legged furniture doesn’t busy the room with lines, and matches the floor color, giving the room a more connected and still expansive look.
A Japanese-style room isn’t limited to futons; you don’t have to forgo a sofa, just use neutral colors and avoid clutter.
A Japanese-style room isn’t limited to futons; you don’t have to forgo a sofa, just use neutral colors and avoid clutter.

“As a central focus for the family, the living room should be spacious,” she said. To this end, other areas connect directly to the living room, the only separation being a counter bar in the kitchen. The two bedrooms are further in, and higher up is a workroom with a sliding door.

To create more usable space, Ornchuma set the wood floors at different levels. “The most interesting feature here is the use of sliding doors. Japanese houses use them because of space limitations, a good reason for using them in a Thai condominium, too.”

Unusual materials come into play. Instead of glass, Ornchuma sometimes chose polycarbonate, which lets light in while blocking lines of sight and is also quite elastic, a useful property for sliding doors.

A sliding door partitions off the kitchen, and a counter divides usable space.

Mother and daughter share this bedroom, with mattress set at a higher level. Storage drawers are built in between levels. The wall surface has a novel look: wood veneer of varying colors and sizes, some pieces extending out far enough for small items to be placed there.

The unfinished concrete wall adds a charming and visually simple touch with a single plant set on a 20-centimeter-deep shelf of drawers with tiny handles. This can be used to place keys or other small items before going into the bedroom.

While we were talking, the daughter opened the polycarbonate-paneled sliding door to join us in the workroom. She lifted a raised section of flooring to reveal hidden storage space beneath,  showing another good feature of the Japanese style. “I store miniature models and drawing boards down there, some longer than A4-size paper, they fit perfectly under the floor.”

What they both really like about life in this minimalist condominium is its homey feeling. Visiting friends agree that it’s a great living space. Of course, what really makes a home is the relationship of the people living there, but the heartwarming feeling of family here is easy to see.

 

The second daughter’s small bedroom is decorated in a sweet style. At night, the cluster of hanging lamps with spherical bulbs sparkles like stars.

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