Sustainable Asian House. Paul McGillick
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Long section.
Front section.
Scott Whittaker is an Australian architect who initially came to Bangkok on a two-year contract but has been living there now for 22 years, in the process establishing the highly successful international design company dwp.
Scott attributes his interest in the Bangkok shophouse to his suburban upbringing in Australia, which engendered a hankering for the richness of urban living. He points out that today in Thailand shophouses are commonly seen as ‘old-fashioned, dark and second-class’, fit only to be torn down and their land consolidated for high-rise office buildings or condominiums. But he saw the potential to recycle and redevelop them into contemporary urban homes. This would not only preserve buildings of character but also avoid the destruction of traditional street life and local communities.
Scott’s house is located in a cul-de-sac right in the heart of Bangkok’s business district. Part of a row of neglected 1980s faux Roman-style shop-houses, it was typical of its kind—a simple concrete column and frame structure with brick infill walls with floors and windows that could be easily modified. While lending itself to adaptive reuse, the building typically brought with it certain challenges. Unlike the Chinese shophouse in Singapore or Malaysia, the Thai shophouse generally covers the entire site without a garden or an interior lightwell. It is dark with small rooms and windows and single brick party walls.
The sleek and minimal lines of the kitchen support the transparency by drawing the eye through the house.
The sitting area embraces the neighbouring streetscape.
Keeping the existing structure of columns and beams, stair placement and existing slabs, Scott aimed to create a contemporary home that embodied the spirit of the original shophouse without attempting to replicate it—in other words, a contemporary urban house which in scale and character fitted in with its neighbours. This involved optimizing the amount of natural light and ventilation but minimizing direct sunlight. In addition, the design aimed to introduce greenery and outdoor spaces and to connect with the streetscape while still ensuring privacy. The best time to view this house is at night when it glows like a lantern and you can see the way it integrates both vertically and horizontally.
Comprising 400 square metres spread over four levels, the Bangkok House gives the impression of being one continuous space, with each level floating in a loose and easy relationship with the others. The front façade is a framed box with extruded blade walls and canopy, extending on one side as a green wall to provide privacy from the neighbour. This box frames the whole house, but acts primarily as a sunscreen. At the rear, the house ‘borrows’ a massive rain tree for sun protection. Because of the free-flowing spaces, sliding glass doors at the front and back ensure cross-ventilation. Vertically, air is drawn up through the house in a chimney effect by an industrial-style ventilator at the top of the stairs.
Scott Whittaker’s home is really a very simple place with individual spaces merely indicated by furnishings or by minimal partitions. The master bathroom, for example, is hardly a bathroom at all with its free-standing bath sitting outside the shower recess more or less in the middle of the floor. Finishes have been kept to a minimum, and apart from some sanitary fixtures and travertine stone, all the materials have been locally sourced, including some recycled teakwood from an old Thai rice barn. The original slabs have been retained, except where sections have been cut out.
Spaces seem to float in a house which almost dematerializes, so it is surprising just how much intimacy and privacy is achieved, which includes clearly separate domains for the occupants and guests. Outdoor balconies and terraces are provided at both back and front, as well as a rooftop spa and a garden.
Double-height sliding glass doors and the set back upper level ensure ample light.
Even vertically, the house seems to dematerialize into a single flowing space.
This is a project which is sustainable in the sense that it has been able to give new life to an old building, avoiding the cost and embodied energy of demolition and reconstruction. But it is also sustainable in the sense that it simultaneously rejuvenates and maintains the streetscape and the local community, demonstrating an alternative to developments which turn their back on the street and an authentic community. This is in addition to its use of natural light and ventilation, and its preference for locally sourced materials.
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