Category: UPDATE

CLOUD 11

March 31, 2023
by admin

FROM THE COLLABORATION OF A REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, MQDC; THE NORWEGIAN ARCHITECTURE STUDIO, SNØHETTA; AND THE THAI ARCHITECTURE STUDIO, A49, THIS PROJECT ASPIRES TO BE ASIA’S LARGEST CREATOR HUB

TEXT: PRATCHAYAPOL LERTWICHA
PHOTO COURTESY OF CLOUD 11 EXCEPT AS NOTED

(For Thai, press here)

“Thai creators are tremendously talented, but Thailand has yet to have a hub for all creators to collaborate on bringing their creative contents to the world stage.” 

Onza Janyaprasert, the director of Cloud 11, shared with us the idea that inspired the birth of Cloud 11 as he pulled the next slide to reveal an image of a large-scale building with a massive doorframe welcoming content creators and the general public inside.

Onza Janyaprasert, the director of Cloud 11 | Photo: Worapas Dusadeewijai

The economic impact of the entertainment business, whether games, movies, or art, is no longer a point of contention. The  South Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism produced a report in 2020, and one section of it revealed that the economic impact of ‘Dynamite,’ a single by the K-pop juggernaut BTS, is estimated at 1.7 trillion won (approximately THB 26,000 million).

Thailand is a country full of talented individuals with incredible ability and potential in content production, as proven by the international recognition Thai creatives have achieved through world-renowned awards. Yet, all of these creators, resources, and technologies have been scattered all over the place, resulting in inconsistent growth of the country’s content industry, akin to streams of wind with tumultuous flow, powerful at times and worn out the next.

MQDC, a real estate development company, created Cloud 11 to be a space that brings together the creative power of creators. The project aims to help creators expand their wings and soar as far as they can by providing a superb learning center, funding, and physical locations, as well as the proper tools, technology, and opportunities.

The project is not intended to be a platform for only Thai creators.

Cloud 11 aspires to be Asia’s largest creator hub.

On Cloud 11 

Meteorologists classify clouds into ten different categories, using numbers ranging from 0 to 9. The number 0 alludes to low clouds, and the greater the number, the higher the clouds are in the sky, which is where the English idiom “on cloud nine” or “pure bliss and happiness” comes from.

The number 11 in the project’s name is utilized instead of 9 to indicate Cloud 11’s goal of becoming a space that can help creators achieve their dreams, in addition to the joy and happiness it hopes to bring.

Cloud 11 is located on Sukhumvit Road, between the Punnawithi and Udomsuk BTS skytrain stations.

The project has seven distinct zones and a total functional space of 254,000 square meters.

Creative Office & Studio Space: The area is open 24 hours a day and specifically designed to accommodate content creators. The area, which is equipped with a high-speed Internet network and a silent and flexible air conditioning system, allowing all creators to fully express their ideas and creativity.

Hybrid Retail: A shopping center aimed at promoting creators’ products and enterprises by providing retail spaces for creators to display, sell, and grow their businesses. The center also houses a product storage, packing, and delivery facility, as well as a cloud kitchen to assist food creators who want to sell their products but are not ready to invest in their own physical storefronts.

Hotel: Smart Hotel and Lifestyle Hotel, run by globally famous hotel chains, will make their debut in Bangkok at Cloud 11, in keeping with the future development of the city’s innovative district.

Education: University campuses and research centers are located in the education zone, with the goal of enhancing creators’ ability and potential.

Cultural: The zone includes theaters, concert halls, and one of the project’s highlights, an enormous sky garden that welcomes both users and the general public to unwind and showcase their creativity.

 

Two architectural design firms are spearheading the design of Cloud 11: Snøhetta, the Norwegian architecture studio, whose portfolio includes impressive projects such as the Oslo Opera House and the redesign of New York’s Times Square, and A49, Thailand’s preeminent architectural firm responsible for the creation of megaprojects including True Digital Park, who collaborate in designing and overseeing the project’s architectural planning.

“We are glad to join this project. I love the project’s ambition to bridge the analogue and the digital world, and presenting a new prototype of building,” said Kjetil Thorsen, architect and co-founder of Snøhetta.

 

Kjetil Thorsen, architect and co-founder of Snøhetta

“The project originated from a very unique idea, and it contains all these varied and complicated functions, so it’s one of the most existing projects for us to be a part of,” Nitis Sthapitanonda, architect and executive director of A49, highlighting the challenges that Cloud 11’s design entails.

 

Nitis Sthapitanonda, architect and executive director of A49

The architecture of Cloud 11 is made up of a group of buildings that surround the green space situated in the middle of the program. When people use the skywalk to get to the buildings, they will be greeted by a giant LED screen and a structural feature that frames the main entrance. This gives the entrance the look and feel of a grand city gate and invites everyone to walk in and start their journey.

“The entryway is 40 meters wide and opens toward the sky garden in the center. The top section of the architectural mass is built on a truss structure whose prolonged span results in a phenomenally enormous and striking visual of the main entrance,” Nitis remarked regarding the design of the project’s frontage.

The structures are arranged around the perimeter of the sky garden in the master plan. The courtyard provides shady green space, keeping the garden pleasantly cool and useful even in the afternoon sun. Despite the fact that the courtyard is surrounded by buildings, the design positions the structures in a proper sequence, with spaces in between, allowing natural light and airflow to make their presence known and preventing the courtyard from becoming overly enclosed.

 

Even from a distance, the sight of clusters of buildings exudes an exuberant energy and diverse activities that take place inside the project. The buildings are divided into three levels based on their elevation: the street level, or the foundation, with a design that has shophouses as the inspiration; the garden level, or the sky garden, which has an intermittent line of the buildings’ exterior walls connecting to the skywalk at the front; and finally, the skyline, which is the upper portion of the structure.

“The layers of complexity in this building are reflected back into the shape of building. One can understand from outside that the building is rich with functions. It is like a miniature of Bangkok,” Kjetil Thorsen explained the idea behind the building’s appearance. “And we were not allowed to cut any trees in the site, so the cuts and shapes of building also reflect the existing trees.

Beyond Cloud 11  

 

There are real estate development projects that focus on making the most of functional space to generate maximum value. Yet, given the enormous size of its sky garden, it seems like Cloud 11 will be taking a different route. The obvious question is: why give up such a significant piece of land for a garden?

 

Cloud 11 believes that the number of people drawn into the project by the green space, whether building users or passersby, is worth sacrificing one portion of the space. The garden will benefit not just the project but also the members of the surrounding community, who will be able to enjoy this vast urban green area, which, when completed, will become the largest elevated green space in Bangkok.

 

“At the beginning of the project, we surveyed the neighboring areas, asking people about their needs, worries, and concerns. We later discovered that people yearned for a good public park or a place to exercise. Creating a green place that welcomes everyone to access became one of the project’s objectives,” Onza Janyaprasert explained.

 

Cloud 11 will also collaborate with the Bangkok Metropolitan Office on the project’s canal front promenade redesign, improving water quality, and transforming it into a canal walk that provides people with a better environment and commute experience. The canal walk will also connect Sukhumvit Road in the project’s front to Soi Sukhumvit 66 alley in the back. The endeavor stems from MQDC, Snøhetta, and A49’s desire to make Cloud 11 a project that benefits the local community as well as the targeted users.

 

Cloud 11 has begun its construction, which is scheduled to be completed and ready for the official launch in late 2024. We can only hope that this high cloud will help bring the aspiring and emerging creators as high as it can and happiness to the community like it intends.  

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BAAN TROK TUA NGORK

March 22, 2023
by admin

A 90 YEARS SHOPHOUSE THAT STU/D/O ARCHITECTS PARTIALLY REPLACES THE STRUCTURE AND ADJUSTS THE SPACE TO MAKE IT FUNCTIONAL WHILE ENCAPSULATING A SENSE OF NOSTALGIA THROUGH ITS TRACE WITHIN

TEXT: PRATCHAYAPOL LERTWICHA
PHOTO: STU/D/O ARCHITECTS AND KUKKONG THIRATHOMRONGKIAT

(For Thai, press here)

When a person reaches the age of 90, they undeniably become designated as a senior citizen. Yet for Baan Trok Tua Ngork, a building with over 90 years of history located in Trok Tua Ngork alley in  Bangkok’s Pom Prap Sattru Phai district, the journey to its 100-year milestone is the start of a new, exciting chapter. 

From a family home to a chili paste factory, an office, and at one point in time, a built structure with a majority of space left unused, Baan Trok Tua Ngork has stood the test of time, having been lived in by people from different generations. Today, after having Stu/D/O Architects at the helm of the renovation, the home has been given new life as a venue with rental spaces ideal for exhibitions, activities, and other potential functions.

Baan Trok Tua Ngork is a five-story building made up of five units of shophouse. At the back of the building sits a trapezoidal-shaped courtyard whose widest size measures up to 5 meters. Behind the area is a small building that was once used as accommodations for workers. The building’s front was originally four stories high before the rooftop floor was converted into the top floor and used as the room where ancestral rites were performed.

“Baan Trok Tua Ngork was initially the home of a family of Chinese immigrants who settled down in Thailand,” Apichart Srirojanapinyo, architect of Stu/D/O Architects, explained the building’s history. “It was originally a multigenerational home where five extended families lived together. It was also used as a chili paste shop and production base, as well as an insurance company’s office, which were also businesses run by family members. As time passed, the space became too small to accommodate everyone. Each family began to move out, leaving the building empty except for the time of ancestor worships, when relatives gathered in the room on the top floor to pay respect to deceased family members and ancestors. 

The ancestor room before renovation

The ancestor room after renovation

After seeing the building neglected for a great many years, the fourth-generation members of the family were seeking ways to bring it  back to life. The initial thought was to build a café, a restaurant, and a small hotel. Everyone debated the idea and eventually agreed on renting out the spaces with the demand for additional system works to be done to prepare the building for future expansion.

Converting an old building into rental spaces didn’t sound like a difficult task, given that they would be developing a layout with empty spaces for people to use for whatever purposes they desired. As it turned out, the new program was the most challenging task for the design team. For the rental spaces to be used for different kinds of activities, the building would have to be able to hold the weight of hundreds of people. This means that any extra functionalities added to the building  in the future would burden its structural framework with more weight.

“One of the first ideas we came up with was incorporating reinforced concrete into the structure of the building,” explained Chanasit Cholasuek, another architect at Stu/D/O Architects. “We experimented on many designs of reinforced structures, from the one that blended every structural component together to the one that emphasized the distinct contrast between the old and new frameworks. The end result was relatively decent, but we felt that the procedure would end up removing the true spirit of the building.” 

When the idea of using reinforced structures to merge the new and old structural elements didn’t work out as planned, Stu/D/O Architects and the engineering team brainstormed for alternative solutions before arriving at the method that delivered the intended final outcome. They took down the building’s first floor so that less weight would be put on the existing base. The first floor was then rebuilt on a new foundation with new foundation piles. “We excavated the entire first level of the building so that the rest of the building could support more weight because the weight of the first floor was removed,” Apichart revealed. “Then we incorporated a new first-floor structure into the existing building fabric, as well as new structural components for the elevator shaft and a new set of stairs.”

What would be inevitable when the old and new structures coexisted was the varied degrees of consolidation. To mitigate that, the design leaves calculated spaces between the points where the old and new structures merged. Not only that, the architect designed the glass walls of the central court next to the original building to overlap with the walls adjacent to the new building. These walls contain a red gradient that matches the tone of the tiles on the first floor. Should the first floor structure ever consolidate, the gradient detail of the glass wall will help hide it from being visible from the outside.

The façade is one of the aspects of the building’s design that the architects chose to keep as many of the original attributes as possible. The added component is the transparent glass walls on the first floor, which promote connectivity between the building’s first floor and the outside world. The architecture team opted to eliminate the walls that separated each area in order to unite the spaces, with the new wood borders on the floor indicating the locations of the original walls. Each unit’s stairs and railing were also dismantled. The treads are then employed as floor panels in the area where the old staircase was placed, adding to the list of traces from the old building’s memories. Numerous original structural details have also been carefully kept, such as the incised corners of the columns, concrete beams, and floor tiles, all of which demonstrate the taste and craftsmanship skills of builders in the past.

The inner court might be considered the building’s heart. While the court isn’t particularly large (the widest side is five meters, while the narrowest side is only three meters), when the light cast’s through it, along with the mirrors and glass panels cladding the rooms, these elements collectively make the court appear more spacious—an impressive improvement over the previous dimly lit space that didn’t have any use, rather than being the surplus space at the back of the building.

The main court before renovation

The new court also serves as a communal space, with users having visible access to what’s going on within the building through the translucent glass walls of the rooms. Old, colorful door and window frames border the glass panels, showing their original positions before being replaced by the new glass features. Tempered laminated glass panels are weight-bearing, allowing window and door frames to be securely mounted to them. Doors and windows that once let in natural light and air have been transformed into a nostalgic detail that transports visitors back to the building’s yesteryear.

Aside from the endeavor to encapsulate a sense of nostalgia, Stu/D/O Architects included new amenities to help increase functional convenience and a better and safer user experience, such as an elevator and a new fire exit, both built to synchronize with the building’s internal circulation. The construction of the translucent roof on the fourth story transforms the rooftop area into a well-shaded terrace that is great for lounging even while it’s raining. An additional walkway is built to connect the existing elevator core to the new one on the fifth floor.

Despite its recent official opening, Baan Trok Tua Ngork has already hosted a variety of events, including the art exhibition Ghost 2565: Live Without Dead Time, Baan Soho, an experimental space run by Soho House prior to the official opening of the clubhouse, and LOUIS VUITTON’s private dinner. Today, a new chapter of Baan Trok Tua Ngork has begun as the building welcomes new people and visitors to create new stories that will leave more traces to be inherited through time. Just like how those scratches on wooden windows or stains caused by incense papers that were burned during ancestral worships have now become an inherent part of the house.

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