Patom Organic Living in Bangkok, Thailand by NITAPROW.

Tucked away in Thonglor’s prime residential neighbourhood in Bangkok, Thailand, this newly constructed building serves as a shop/showroom for Patom body care products. In addition to a small 25-seat café, the showroom is also a place for raising ecological awareness and sustainable living through a series of workshops and farmers market held in the garden, selling fresh produce from the local network of organic farmers.

Designed by Bangkok-based architecture studio NITAPROW, lead by two female architects and Columbia University graduates, the small timber-framed glass building sits on a slightly raised hill. The site is covered in wild grass and ferns that naturally soften the building’s rectangular footprint, while carefully preserving an existing line of fruit trees. The building’s transparency and its modest size set out to unveil the expanse of the lush garden around and beyond its volume. In turn, the timber and glass volume creates a setting where passersby can catch a clear glimpse of the livelihood inside the enclosure alongside the garden’s natural surroundings.

The use of curvature in the design facilitates both the physical and the visual flow of the rectangular enclosure and conceptually reconnects the interior design language with its landscape. The rattan wrapped spiral staircase and the corresponding curved mezzanine add to the overall interior – an elevated getaway with a privileged view, a hint of intimacy and playfulness.

The composition of timber posts and ceiling pattern owe its visual reference to the scenic view of coconut trees and palm trees at Patom’s Organic farm. Their tall slender trunks with branches that radiate around the trees’ zenith form an inspiring gesture which initiates the design of the ceiling’s structural layout and the central wood post of the building.

With high regard for timber as a renewable and sustainable building material, all structural posts and beams are consciously made of reclaimed Redwood and Tabak timber recovered from the owner’s old and abandoned houseboat. Tree trunks that form the base of the brass display tables were collected from fallen trees at the owner’s farm. Café tables and chairs were refurbished from the owner’s unused teak furniture collection.

Patom Organic Living is an organic and modern approach in balancing the natural and the constructed environment, complete with an ‘extreme love’ sentiment from Team Yellowtrace.

[Images courtesy of NITAPROW. Photography by Anak Navaraj.]