Innehållsförteckning för #14 från Design Anthology, Asia Pacific Edition

Welcome to our September issue, the annual edition dedicated entirely to covering the creative scene in one country — and this year it’s Thailand. It’s no secret that this is a country made up of talented creative people who are equally warm and welcoming. (What’s less known is that 70 per cent of current architecture graduates in Thailand are female.) Needless to say, this has been a fun issue to research and compile. I haven’t always felt this way, particularly about Bangkok. My first visit to the bustling metropolis was on a business trip some 15 years ago, and I was sadly unaware of all the city had to offer. Thankfully, this has changed over the years and a series of subsequent trips back, resulting in it today being one…

Absurd Thinking: Between Art and Design edited by Ashley Simone with Ellen Wexler (Lars Müller Publishers) Original, poetic and transformational — these are some words used to describe the work of Allan Wexler, one of today’s most original designers and architects. In his work, art and architecture often blur into one, sharing a sort of symbiotic relationship. Absurd Thinking: Between Art and Design is composed of more than 200 of Wexler’s creations since the 1980s, including sketches and drawings, completed works and installations. Wexler’s architectural designs focus on smaller elements such as chairs, tables and furniture. Other multi-scale and multimedia works are exhibited in photographs, and include his own explanations of the pieces. A theme throughout is a focus on everyday practices and rituals. Short fiction writings by Patricia C…

‘When I first arrived in Bangkok, I met so many inspiring and creative people,’ recalls Thomas Menard, who in 2010 quit his high-stress job in France and moved to Asia in search of a different life. ‘When it came to house hunting, I was really interested in finding a local shophouse in a cultural or historical area, and Charoenkrung seemed the perfect spot.’ After scouting numerous laneways along the 150-year-old Charoenkrung Road, Menard eventually settled on an empty shophouse on Soi 28, lured by ‘no traffic, a local vibe, proximity to the river, and the lively Chinatown and Silom Road scene nearby’. He soon opened up alternative art space Speedy Grandma on the ground level of his shophouse, which he then followed up with a slew of other neighbourhood venues…

It can take a lifetime for industrial designers to fully acquaint themselves with their material of choice. Discovering a substance’s quirks and qualities requires hours of study, play and experimentation. It’s in this regard that young designer Pin Saruta Kiatparkpoom has a leg up on the competition. With a family that has long worked in steel manufacturing, she developed a keen knowledge of steel early on — enough to know exactly how to mould and shape it into the contemporary forms and shapes she invents and envisions. ‘My biggest influencer is my dad and our family’s factory,’ she says, yet it was only after pursuing a fine arts degree at university that she began to immerse herself in the family business. For her thesis project, Kiatparkpoom created mixed-media artworks, mounting…

With his untamed salt-and-pepper mane, mischievous eyebrows and Kenzaburō Ōe-style spectacles, Thai architect Duangrit Bunnag bears an endearing resemblance to a mad scientist. And he is indeed a mastermind of sorts — one of the leading figures behind some of Thailand’s most experimental spaces, like creative playground The Jam Factory that surrounds his Bangkok office, and the brand-new Warehouse 30 project. And now the architect is branching out into the hospitality sector with the recent unveiling of a refreshing hotel concept. ‘It’s a new way to look at a hotel,’ he says of the brand, which he co-owns. ‘New possibilities, a new way to design, a new way to operate it.’ Located on the top floor of the Seenspace shopping mall in the coastal retreat town of Hua Hin…

Udom Taepanich likes to call his light-filled new gallery and studio space in outer Bangkok his ‘playground’. For nearly three decades, Taepanich, one of Thailand’s best-known stand-up comedians, has created visual art alongside his performance and writing work.Taepanich contrasts his approaches to the visual arts and comedy. Whereas the script for a comedy show ‘must be written, tested, edited and refined several times’ before it’s performed, visual art allows the artist to freely translate his ‘thoughts, ideas and emotions without any discipline or limitation’; hence the playground. In fact, these two forms of expression have often intertwined, with Taepanich designing exuberant three-dimensional sets for his live performances. But the artist says he values the way that the design of an individual gallery-scale object is freed from the functional requirements…

Three years.That’s how long it took Rachaporn Choochuey, co-founder of design studio all(zone), to find the right place to call home. Wanting to explore a new typology surrounding traditional shophouses, she scoured the city until she found the perfect candidate in Bangkok’s trendy Thonglor neighbourhood. ‘The shophouse was the most common building typology in the city over the past century,’ she says. ‘But with rapid economic development, they’ve become obsolete and underutilised in a lot of prime areas.’ Choochuey and a team of collaborators began experimenting with new identities for the old six-level structure as they set in on renovations. A series of upgrades that had taken place over the years added an extra layer of challenge to the project. ‘Nothing remained from the original building except the main…

Forty community-based housing projects across Thailand. The Thailand Creative & Design Center reimagined in the old Central Post Office in Bangkok. The new museum of contemporary art in Chiang Mai. Behind some of the most talked-about architectural projects in Thailand today are women. While globally, gender equality remains an issue for the industry, Thailand is reaping the benefits of diverse participation. It is common for women in architecture to experience discrimination from the boardroom to construction sites. The American Institute of Architects’ annual Diversity in the Profession of Architecture reports that women are still underrepresented in the profession due to having fewer mentors, receiving lower pay and being promoted less frequently. Poor work-life balance, especially for those with families, affects the ability of firms to retain female architects. Perhaps even…

Architect Chatpong Chuenrudeemol is a bit obsessive. ‘I’m constantly making architectural drawings and I have to model everything I see,’ he tells me, a bit of boyish fervour in his voice. ‘For me, that’s how I get into a project. I need to get inside and really feel that it’s really a living community.’ This compulsive tendency has seen Chuenrudeemol burrowing through informal shantytowns, skulking around Bangkok love hotels and trailing food vendors as they make their daily migrations around the city. Collectively, these behaviours make up the research end of his award-winning practice, CHAT architects, and are part of a continual cycle through which he is finally ‘learning how to be a Thai architect’. ‘There’s no Thai architectural history that’s accurate,’ he laments. ‘Either you look at Thai temples…

Thai ceramicist Aor Suttiprapha’s studio is perched on the fourth floor and rooftop space above a mechanic’s supply shop in Bangkok’s South Sukhumvit neighbourhood. Occupying the 50-square-metre space are two electric ceramic kilns, a throwing wheel and a large table where she creates her trademark contemporary minimalist vessels and sculptures. For the artist, the tiny studio is also a serene sanctuary, where she is able to combine the act of giving form to raw clay with her practice of Buddhist philosophy, using meditation as a defining point in her elegant works. In practice, this means focusing on every single fingerprint, keeping her mind in a fluid state and allowing the earthen clay to reveal its own character. Suttiprapha says her unique approach first emerged after beginning her design career as…

Combining traditional Thai craft with innovative fabrication techniques, Ausara Surface brings unconventionality and a passion for exploration to its experimental fabric and surface collections. Much like the story behind their captivating metal fabric collections, the lives of Shoson Thatawakorn and Jarupatcha Achavasmit are inextricably woven together by a shared passion for material innovation. With Thatawakorn’s penchant for product design and Achavasmit’s background in textiles, the dynamic duo joined forces to found Ausara Surface in 2013. The multidisciplinary practice combines applied research and bespoke fabric design to introduce the little-explored craft of metal fabrics to a new audience. ‘Unconventional and unexpected is our design philosophy,’ says Achavasmit. This yearning for the extraordinary reveals itself immediately through a range of metallic textiles that transcend the conventions of run-of-the-mill fabrics. In particular, it’s…

When the MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum first opened in 2016 on an empty, tree-lined street in Chiang Mai, the villagers were perplexed. ‘They didn’t understand what it was but then some said “Ah, this must be a new temple”, which was actually quite cute,’ recalls architect Rachaporn Choochuey from design studio all(zone), breaking into a smile. Clad in some 100,000 reflective glass panels, the museum’s facade draws inspiration from the shiny colourful tiles that envelop Thai temples. ‘A temple is a representation of paradise, and the tiles help to evoke something that represents another world.’ In the case of MAIIAM, the reflective tiles created such a dramatic effect that the building appears more like a mirage than a solid structure. ‘Sometimes it disappears into the sky and reflects all…

Walking the streets of Bangkok, whether in historical Rattanakosin Island or districts of latter date, a single pair of eyes is often insufficient to register all that’s on display around you. Along the city’s thoroughfares, merchandise, street kitchens and people peddling wares of all sorts spill forth onto the pavement in a stretched-out theatre of opportunity, while the adjacent, oftentimes open-fronted shophouses allow for intimate views into the traditional trades still being performed inside. Turn down one of the many soi, or side streets, that lead away from the main road, however, and this transparency diminishes. Here, residential functions get the upper hand with what urban planners consider a ‘healthy mix’ of luxury apartment complexes, charming detached houses, more affordable townhouses, cheap rental rooms and the occasional informal community. Any…

Kezia Karin x Sana Living & LAFLO Drawing inspiration from her colonial-style childhood home in Yogyakarta, Indonesian interior designer Kezia Karin has collaborated with furniture manufacturer Sana Living and LAFLO to create a new furniture collection, titled 1:1. Though inspired by her childhood memories, Karin sought a departure, focusing instead on a modern and versatile design in this collection. The screen (seen left) works to layer spaces, while also nodding to the Javanese culture’s regard for privacy. Other products featured in the collection include a dining table, multifunctional cabinet and a daybed. keziakarin.com  / sana-living.com / laflo.co.id Douglas & Bec To mark the tenth anniversary of their partnership, New Zealand-based father-daughter design duo Douglas & Bec are releasing a new collection of furniture and lighting. The ARCH series draws from furniture…

‘To me, architecture is structure,’ says architect Boonserm Premthada, whose practice, Bangkok Project Studio, was chosen to design a new tasting room for The Wine Ayutthaya, a bar-restaurant in the ancient Thai capital of Ayutthaya. Inspired by the lushly forested site and the area’s indigenous wood-framed houses, Premthada created a cube-shaped pavilion whose latticed plywood structure is entirely exposed. The client let Premthada choose where to situate the structure on the verdant site. ‘I decided to keep the original landscape, which is the history of the place,’ he says. ‘People generally interpret history only in terms of man-made structures, but for me, the trees, the seedlings, the small clumps of soil, the rivers and creeks are also a part of the real history that we overlook.’ Next came the…

Thailand’s political upheavals in 2010 and then again just three years later involving violent street clashes between government supporters (the ‘Red Shirts’) and anti-government protesters (the ‘Yellow Shirts’) culminated in a May 2014 military coup d’état. Most of the Thai constitution was suspended and the country is currently governed by an unelected military junta until its new National Assembly is formed. Political unrest has a long history in Thailand. The recent coup is the 12th such since 1932 — in addition to a handful of attempted coups — and reflects the country’s fraught history of internal political intrigue and a society deeply divided between the urbanised Bangkok elites and a far-flung rural population with little political clout. What unifies the country are strong Buddhist cultural values and a deep-set…

What do you do when you’ve spent a lifetime collecting beautiful objets and tchotchkes and, as is often the case, you find yourself running out of storage space? Increasingly, the solution appears to be to open your own hotel, as Eugene Yeh has done. At first blush, the Cabochon Hotel, a genteel white pile set on a quiet soi in Bangkok’s buzzy Sukhumvit quarter, looks as if it’s straight out of the Sarkies Brothers playbook — a scaled-down version of their legendary Raffles hotel with broad white terraces, deep-set eaves, slender French doors, mosaic floors and a battalion of window panels rescued from an early-19th-century mansion in Myanmar. What a surprise, then, to learn that the 13-room property was only built in 2012. These days, Yeh spends ten to…