Concepts:
The design and concept are both a visually poetic and formal response to the small site and the narrow available building footprint. A residential tower located in the fashionable Sukhumvit district of Bangkok and a Soi known for its vibrant nightlife and architecture, this context solicited and necessitated a unique design response.
The form and shape are influenced by the immediate formal constraints of ‘place’ and the cultural essences of Bangkok and Thailand. The design is envisioned as a grain of threshed rice rising on the banks of a Soi leading from a former Klong, or waterway. It is a timepiece that gathers and re-directs the intense and abundant sunlight of Southeast Asia.

Form / Rice:
For centuries, rice has been an integral part of the Asian culture with particular societal importance in Thailand. ‘To eat’ in Thai language is literally ‘eat rice’ or ‘kin khao’. The site, like most in the Sukhumvit area, was a rice paddy adjacent to a Klong up until just twenty years ago.
The building sits above the ground, hovering over a polished black granite field which is reflective, like the water in a rice paddy. The ground floor area is landscaped with shallow pools of flowering lotus, orchid and rice. The building’s mass rises like a grain of threshed rice out of a metaphoric paved pebble wash rice paddy.
The building’s massing is a response to the very unique site size, the setback regulations and the Bangkok zoning 2:1 sky exposure plane. Narrow and tall, the building responds poetically to these constraints, rising vertically and tapering at the top to further accentuate the dramatic thinness of the plan.

Time / Random / Weave:
Having a dominant east-west axis, the building’s orientation is ideal to capture north-south seasonal winds and seasonal daylight. The window fenestration is an organized randomness so the unique shape is perceived as a whole and massing is maintained. The windows weave and stitch back and forth across the facade like a frozen weaving trundle.
Each window is like a time piece for the interior spaces, casting both light and shadow. They respond both to the prevailing light and the interior floor plan layouts. Each room will have a different quality of light depending on the window size, it’s compass exposure and it’s height above the ground plane. Windows are full height in the living areas where the interior spaces have the best views and smaller where acoustic isolation or privacy is desired such as in bedrooms and baths.