Besides the honor of Living ASEAN’s being a presenter and media partner at the fourth Myanmar Build & Décor Fair, one of this year’s event highlights was its invitation of leading Thai architect M.L. Varudh Varavarn of Vin Varavarn Architects (VVA) as keynote speaker on the topic “ASEAN Architecture Design.”
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Story: Nawapat D., PM Praphatsorn /// Photography: Damrong Lee, PM Praphatsorn
The fourth Myanmar Build & Décor Fair, September 28 -30 at Myanmar Event Park (MEP) in Yangon, Myanmar, organized by well-known event planner ICVeX and affiliates, was just as great as in any of the three previous years, full of fully furnished booths surrounded by enthusiastic admirers.
Besides Living ASEAN’s honor at being a presenter and media partner at the fourth Myanmar Build & Décor event, one of this year’s highlights was its invitation of leading Thai architect M.L. Varudh Varavarn, founder of Vin Varavarn Architects (VVA) and recipient of world-class awards from many institutions, as keynote speaker on the topic “ASEAN Architecture Design.” This attracted a large audience who were completely captivated with his speech.
Before turning the microphone over to M.L. Varudh Varavarn, the seminar was introduced by Mr. Jeremiah Pitakwong, Managing Editor of the Baan Lae Suan (House and Garden) Magazine Group, taking the stage to speak on the topic of “Modern Tropical Region,” showing seminar participants many facets of “modern tropical” architecture.
He used the example of the Amarin Printing and Publishing offices, designed and built with a shady, refreshing atmosphere by Plan Architect, one of Thailand’s leading architectural firms, whose prime focus is on living intelligently in hot, humid conditions.
“We’re lucky to be living and working in one of the best examples of modern tropical architecture in both the smaller buildings and the taller ones. We don’t have elevators, but there are long covered walkways where we get to experience the heat in hot weather and the wetness of the rainy season,” said Mr. Pitakwong.
He went on to introduce Living ASEAN, an online subsidiary of Amarin, as well as magazines, books, and TV programs that bring concepts of modern tropical living to readers and audiences, and spoke about the Baan Lae Suan Fair, which brings together Amarin’s own modern tropical community, as he drew on his own impressions in many years of travel and photographing houses all around the ASEAN region to find ways to inspire others.
M.L. Varudh Varavarn’s talk, aiming both to educate and inspire, was based on three of his most impressive and internationally recognized projects: 1) The Pine Crest Residence, a modern residence on Soi Tonson in Bangkok, simply designed for the most comfortable living, 2) Botanica Khao Yai, a resort project located in the well-known vacation area of Thailand like Khao Yai, and 3) finally, one of his favorite works, Bann Huay San Yaw – Post Disaster School. This was one of 9 “por dee por dee (perfectly adequate)” classrooms in the Design for Disaster (D4D) relief project for schools damaged in the May 5, 2014 6.3 magnitude Chiang Rai earthquake.
“The day after it happened, the Thai disaster relief network D4D sent me pictures on my phone and asked me to participate in designing and building new schools for children in northern Thailand. You’d never want to have kids have to study in those miserable conditions, so I said I’d be very happy to join the program and do everything I could to help,” explained M.L. Varudh, while showing pictures of students studying in emergency classrooms that were simply unacceptable places to study, and where he’d followed up by building a new school building to replace the ones that had collapsed. This became a demonstration structure whose design other victims of the Chiang Rai disaster could adapt for use in building earthquake-resistant houses.
After the lectures, many seminar participants came up to Living ASEAN booth to chat and ask questions and in the hopes of talking and getting better acquainted with M.L. Varudh and the Living ASEAN website work team, as the first “ROOM x LIVING ASEAN DESIGN TALK” event in Myanmar created quite a positive buzz. We are looking forward to next year, and thinking about which architects we’ll invite to speak then.
