PHOTO COURTESY OF STUDIO LOCOMOTIVE
WHO
A group of experimenters who are adventurous with designing the experiential spaces.
WHAT
Anything, regardless of methods, tools, or approaches, that favors the conveyance of design intents translated into the spatial experiences.
TEXT & PHOTO: PUVADOL SAENGVICHIEN
Packed in the concrete residences, Bangkokians have been sought for a dream of getting access to nature. However, there is a lack of parks in urban areas when compared with the ratio size of residences, roads, and commercial buildings that have been deliberately increasing nowadays.
What Bangkok has always been portrayed to us is the illustration of a green city fantasizing the chance of community getting closer to the environment. Those images were consistently used for promoting in several real estate advertisements. Moreover, many construction sites were decorated with vinyl posters simulating the green ambience in order to highlight their image towards the projects in a district and connect the individuals’ utopia dream of the city.
If we take a closer look, we will be able to steadily observe the transformation of the green decorations throughout the time. The messages included inside those images will appear to change differently from the beginning. The result seems to be a reflection of the city people’s intense desire for the true nature in order to recompense their shallow life. This reveals the illusion dream of city people that is still quite far away from reality.
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Puvadol Saengvichien was born and raised in Samut Prakan Province. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture and a Master’s degree in Business Administration (Marketing). For 18 years, he had been working in the field of architecture, retail and product management. He left the corporate world behind and devote most of the time to pursue his passion for Photography.
TEXT: PAPHOP KERDSUP
PHOTO: WASAWAT DECHAPIROM EXCEPT AS NOTED
What do “voids” in architecture from different periods inform us?
In addition to societal and cultural developments, “voids”—including doors, windows, vertical and horizontal openings in architecture as well as framing with such elements as walls—reflect the relationship between people and our environments, such as climate, use of space = and particularly natural light.
In the past, the wall-bearing structure in Thai architecture caused limitation in the size of voids, like walls of the Buddhist temple’s main hall and commercial buildings in their early days. This made our feelings towards light and darkness in the past differ from that today. Actually, we might have become more accustomed to the beauty in the shadows that felt more ambiguous than the complete clarity in front of our eyes.
In the latter half of the 20th century, modern construction technology started to enable people to bring the lights into our everyday living, thanks to the large glass windows and doors, especially for TOSTEM’s quality aluminium-framed ones. Thai people’s experience of lights has changed accordingly. With natural sunlight during the daytime and artificial light at night, we are now appreciating the aesthetics of light more than ever.
As architecture has been evolving until the present time, our experience of space starts to diversify. The familiarity caused by “voids”, which have changed from one period to another, makes us see the world around us with different perspectives. Framed images we see through windows, for example, are as appealing as that of an architecture accidentally framed by sidewalk walls while walking around Bangkok.
PHOTO COURTESY OF GLA DESIGN STUDIO
WHO
GLA DESIGN STUDIO is Bangkok-based multi-disciplinary design studio which consist of friends which are landscape architects, interior designers, architects.
WHAT
Our services; landscape, architecture, interior design, planning and consultancy service.
