atelier

Sa-ngob House:
Sa-ngob is a Thai word meaning “feeling peaceful”.  When it comes to a house, it means to deliver the atmosphere of a “peaceful dwelling”.
.
Existing conditions:
This 800-sq.m. site is located in a very hectic suburban area of Bangkok.  The neighborhood is very noisy during the daytime and quite unorganized in general.  Moreover, it is surrounded by a lot of low-quality 5-storey apartment buildings.  That means the house can easily be looked over from the height of those apartment buildings – in other words, the privacy can be exposed to the high viewpoints around the site.
However, there are a couple of main reasons the owner must stick with this site.  One is that this piece of land is handed down from the parents – it saves a lot of money, meaning that the budget will be spent only on the construction.  The other reason is that it is very close to the parents’ house within walking distance, which means so much to the owner in keeping the family relationship close for all members in the long term.
.
The Requirements:
Due to the owner having just had newborn baby twins, this house is mainly dedicated to the kids and the quality time in raising them.  So, the owner summarizes 3 requirements for the house; (1) the house should nurture a reading habit, (2) the house should be a place to present good arts, and (3) the house should let the kids grow along with trees and greenery as much as possible.  Moreover, if possible, the owner prefers to live in a single-story house.  If impossible, the house can exceed to the second floor partially.  
Regarding the owner personally, it is a couple who are in the film industry.  They both teach in film schools and work on film projects.  Therefore, the house has to provide a kind of teaching and working spaces; in which the other parts of the house will not be disturbed by guests.
.
The Design:
Most importantly, this design must provide the best privacy regardless of the unpleasant surroundings of the neighborhood.  So, the design team thought of the word “Sa-ngob”, meaning the feeling of peace in the Thai language.  It is a calm state of atmosphere, where one can potentially uplift his mind.  So we eventually proposed the idea of making an inner courtyard with a thematic tree by ways of using the house to enclose the open space inside.  We do believe that architecturally the court itself performs as the central element to tie every room together whereas the circulation around it can be the best place for libraries and galleries.  It brings pleasant spatial qualities caused by the movement of natural lighting and ventilation.  In other words, the inner courtyard draws a pure connection between the sky and the earth, which allows the perception of time and season to take place.  
The look of the house is very simple – it is a pitch roof form in which one side of the roof is shorter than the other one.  But with such a simple form, the roof is meant to perform as a shrouding surface, in which it covers rooms from the single-story volume on one side to the double-story volume on the other.  That is the reason why the roof surface runs from the west side upwards, reaches up to the tipping point, and continues to wrap around the east elevation.  Then the surface gets carved out to open the central open space, which allows the light and air to penetrate the inner court.
.