No Comments »

Subtle House of Shadows Solves Problem in Thailand

• Tweet

• Tweet

Department of Architecture designed the clever Shadow House in Samutprakarn, Thailand.

The site on a busy corner intersection presented a real challenge.

The up-scale residential estate its on forbids the use of any kinds of fences around the houses.

So the design had to create some privacy for the residents exposed to views by passing motorists, at ground level.

The solution was to map out metal lattice screens and sheer semi-translucent canvas panels projected at various distances from the block of the house, but all within a tight grid.

This series of screens outdoors on the attached terrace create privacy and allow partial views, without strictly constituting ‘fencing.’

This subtle solution creates a series of soft baffles in canvas to buffer the house from the street, in a space that appears in constant motion.

As the sun sets and twilight falls, the screens net the shadows of trees, and as dark falls, the lights of passing cars are projected on the semi-translucent screens.

The motion of these shadow images across the panels suggest the motion of black and white movies projected onto movie screens.

Compared to the difficult site, the owner’s brief was comparatively simple: his bedroom on the ground floor.

On the second floor the client’s mother and his sister have more secluded bedrooms.

On the ground floor, one long great room houses the public shared living and dining area.

At one end of this simple block of space, a contemporary kitchen for the small family.

The imaginative solution extends the great room into an indoor-outdoor al fresco room with the modular grid of lattice panel screens creating intimacy despite the very public site.