ARCHITECT
“I have been working on projects in Thailand since 2007, and this past January made my 20th trip to the country. I have become a big fan of the country, its culture and its people. Bangkok is a fascinating city and an amazing place to do work. They have a very sophisticated culture and appreciation of design which is evident in both the quality of retail environments and hospitality/dining establishments that is on par with any cosmopolitan global destination, yet retain a particular Thai way of thinking that is humble and down to earth.
As a foreign architecture office, we are only legally allowed to work up to the Design Development phase, so in the end we are handing off to a local architect (in this case A49) to produce the Consruction Drawings and to do the Contract Administration. As such, we work closely with the client to develop the conceptual and schematic designs – and with the local consultant team to advise on local codes, construction processes, and other requirements.
At an urban level, the project tries to recreate the vibrancy of the Sois (pedestrian alleys) found throughout Bangkok – where small restaurants and bars are able to create lively but shaded and protected outdoor dining areas. At a more architectural level, we are interested in referencing the timber detailing of traditional Thai architecture, as well as capitalizing on the benefits of passive cooling strategies that they used. Pattern and motif is also a recurring theme in Thai architecture which we look to express in a more contemporary language with pattern being used as a variable condition that can produce gradients.” Alvin Huang, architect at SDA | Synthesis Design + Architecture, answered a few questions about "The Groove."
PROJECT INFO
This project is an expansion of the existing Central World Shopping Center in Bangkok, one of the largest malls in the world. We have been working with the Central group and Chirathivat family since 2007 on a number of different projects.
This project is made up of 4,000 sqm of enclosed retail and 8,000 sqm of restaurants and bars facing an open-air protected courtyard.
CONCEPT
From the architect. Try imagine a mega city of 15 millions people and 8 millions vehicles without any proper pedestrian pathway, and you may think that it is impossible. Well, Bangkok is kind of like that. When a client asked our team to design the landscape for their new retails project, they also gave us a short brief, 'We want this to be "Talk of the town"'. However, considering Bangkok's lack of quality footpath, we thought it was much better to make it "Walk of the town" instead. Our goal was to design one thing and one thing only, a good public pathway for the people of Bangkok.
Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, is the heart of everything in the country, making it an extreme primate city, dwarfing Thailand's other urban centers in terms of importance. The city has more than 8 millions registered vehicles. Many of those cars are driving crazily around the city everyday. Yet, basically, we do not have any proper public footpath at all. There are more than 15 millions residents and a couple millions more tourists in Bangkok. As a result, every single square inch of the city could be a potential place for setting up businesses. Bangkok's footpaths are no exception.
Street vendors, selling everything from counterfeit products to your dinners, permanently occupy more than half of pedestrian areas. To make it worse, an uncountable numbers of both legal and illegal signage help blocking the pedestrian circulation as well. Some are completely blocked, which force pedestrians to walk on streets instead, increasing the number of accidents every year.
EXTERIOR + INTERIOR
In 2012, a client, CPN, wanted to build Groove at Central World, a 2-storey retails space, on top of their existing parking building in the prime area of Bangkok. The site is in between 2 of Bangkok's busiest train stations. Both stations are connected to the city's largest shopping centers, which led to a huge number of pedestrians walking between the 2 stations everyday. The existing structure was located right next to public pathway. It was designed as a multi-leveled underground parking floors with a huge void between itself and the footpath, allowing for sunlight to reach down and for some air for ventilation.
The lowest floor was about 5 meters drop from the footpath, which needed guardrails to prevent people from falling down. A number of tall royal palm trees were planted there for years, creating heavy shades which make it a bit too dark to walk in the evening. A good portion of the footpath was used as parking for passing by motorcycles, meaning that some of them were driving on the pedestrian path. Combining the huge void, the shade, and the motorcycles together, the place was just perfect for criminal activities.
Originally, our scope was mainly to design the courtyard inside the new mall. The client wanted their new