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- VOL. 12.2
La Gritta: Fine Dining by the Sea
The Cliff: The Freshest of Fresh
A Cool Million for a Piece of the Hottest Beach
Laguna Phuket Keeps on Selling – It’s So Easy
Look Who’s Here to Play… Superyachts
Spired chedis, dragon-scaled temple roofs glisten gold and green and red and orange. Richly carved gables invoke lush nature and long history. Elegant roof finials gesture towards dimensions beyond history. Thailand’s traditional temple and palace architecture is part of everyone’s iconic vision of this country.
Less widely recognized are the traditional houses of the common people. Religious structures, by custom, were built of durable materials such as brick and stone. Traditional private homes were perishable. Awe-inspiring temple complexes such as Ayutthaya and Sukhothai are mere vestiges, the stone-and-brick bones of once-thriving capitals. The wood-and-bamboo-and-thatch flesh of these cities – the houses that accommodated populations as large or larger than major European cities, the covered fresh markets and warehouses – has long since decayed By eighteenth-century Ayutthaya, however, wooden houses of great utility and elegance were common among the more affluent.
Today, elements of both temple and traditional house architecture are preserved in some of the finest resorts in the country.
“This is a very sensual kind of architecture,” says K.C. Ho, project director in charge of design and construction for the Banyan Tree, part of Laguna Phuket’s five-hotel integrated resort complex. “It evolved in response to the climate.” Even features now often adapted largely on aesthetic grounds had their origins in practical considerations dictated by a tropical climate and widespread forests. Traditional Thai houses are cool, dry, breezy and relaxing. At the same time, they reflect a culture that is open to nature and to neighbours, while affording access to live-giving water.
Traditional Thai houses feature pegged post-and-beam construction and steeply pitched roofs finished in thatch or tiles, their distinctive curved eaves rising to steep peaks. More than merely pleasing to the eye, the high-roofed interior makes a cool and dim refuge from the tropical heat. Oriented to take advantage of prevailing winds or sea breezes, the high pitched roof and end gables provide a wind-tunnel effect, evacuating warmer air as it rises. Windows are located to reduce exposure to sun, while a generous roof overhang protects windows and walls even more from the light. A second, stepped roof sometimes also promotes ventilation. In the past, common building materials included woven bamboo and thatch, which do not retain heat. More affluent homeowners favoured teak.
Traditional houses were prefabricated, with non-load-bearing panelled walls attached to columns and beams. Mortis and tenon joints and wooden pegs were used in place of nails. These structures were meant to be portable in face of periodic threats from war, riverine erosion or floods. Monsoon weather patterns, of course, have also shaped design. The steep roof evolved in part to sustain minimum wear during heavy downpours. Houses were elevated on stilts, partly to improve ventilation, but also as protection against floods. (It also afforded protection against snakes and other wild animals. Domestic animals, meanwhile, found comfortable shelter under these dwellings.)
Water has always been essential for an economy based primarily, at least till recently, on rice. And, just as water has been her life-blood, Thailand’s waterways have been the main arteries of transportation and communication. Towns and villages set their roots along seashores, rivers and extensive canal systems. Reflecting this essential aspect of Thai culture, resort design has incorporated splendid views of pools, canals and seafronts.
Airy spaciousness has always been a vital feature of the traditional home. This is also true of any modern Thai resort that refers to the tradition. On the one hand, the lavish use of space further reduces the retention of heat. At the same time – more than would be practicable in colder climes – traditional design blurs the distinction between interior and exterior. The two spheres become interpermeable where, aside from sleeping, much of daily life takes place out of doors. Almost half the area of the traditional Thai house is exposed to the sky and open to breezes. Typically, several rooms evolve around a large, open central deck, accommodating the elements of an extended family including three generations or more. The kitchen and shower area, often open to the sky as well, also lie outside the main dwelling.
In terms of comfort and social interrelations, most of these design elements lend themselves ideally to tropical resort design. The open spaces of the private home translate into public spaces in resorts. Both have similar functions, while the forms of both public and private spaces, and the way in which they’re related to each other, are aesthetically and socially pleasing.
With resorts designed in this manner, something of a genuine community atmosphere is emerging. The many return guests begin to recognize each other, just as the staffs come to welcome them as old friends. The main pool areas, the restaurants, and the bars provide ideal centres for meeting others, while the villas and rooms are designed to offer entirely private getaways. At some resorts, for instance, the front buildings are very open, with great views. The villas, on the other hand, are very private and inward looking. At others the units are staggered so that guests don’t see their neighbours’ decks, and dense jungle settings might leave a casual passer-through convinced the whole resort consisted of only a few cottages.
Architecture always takes something away from a natural environment, according to American architect Robert Boughey. As he suggests, however, it can also put something back. The Banyan Tree, together with the four other member hotels at Laguna Phuket, reclaimed property that had been ravaged by tin mining, turning a wasteland into a tropical Eden. Mr Somchai Sillapanont, owner and manager of Phuket’s Marina Phuket, maintained the original coconut grove while transforming the grounds into a lush botanical garden.
This idea of putting something back applies to the cultural environment as well. These resorts are responses to the faceless modern building that characterizes so much of modern Asian architecture. The decision to adopt predominantly Thai architectural themes is both an aesthetic and an environmental decision, intended to be considerate of both the traditions of the local community and travellers who come to Thailand to experience another culture. As Ho suggests, “One objective of successful architecture, these days, is to establish a sense of place.”
Marina Phuket’s Somchai agrees: “As cities become bigger and life becomes busier and sometimes more difficult, people are looking for refuges. Resorts have to provide this.” As an important part of the escape, Somchai suggests, “tourists want to experience the local ethos. Both the natural and the cultural environments, of course, are elements of this.” This is the central insight that has guided the development of these showcase resorts. Indeed, the owner of Marina Phuket would extend this ideal to the entire community of which his resort is a part. Together with Marina Phuket’s conceptual designer Prachaya Aporn, from the local Rachapat Institute, and architect Samrung Chaisorn from SC Design, he is proposing to make a variety of architectural plans for private houses available free to local residents, encouraging them to shape a modern Phuket that would nevertheless be continuous with traditional Thai culture. “We are trying to look ahead as much as 20 or 30 years,” says Somchai. “We have to come up with something functional that has character and style and is at the same time affordable. In the longer term, we should have a village that is progressively more pleasant for residents and visitors alike.”
Different resorts have applied different approaches, but a general rule suggests itself: those whose exterior architecture most obviously owes a debt to traditional motifs are those where the interior design is most understated. With some of the best modern Thai decor, you get bright colours mixed with subtle hues, elegance and reserve contrasted with plain fun and surprise. According to prominent Thai architect Mom Tri Devakul – designer of Phuket’s much-admired Boathouse, a boutique resort hotel and restaurant of the highest standard – the traditional Thai home used more earth tones in ceramics and textiles. The vivid colours, he says, are a modern element, but a pleasing one for all of that, with vivid cushions and other textiles juxtaposed to muted wood tones and stone.
Resort architecture tends to mix together temple, palatial and residential themes, sometimes with little regard for consistency of traditional design. “But the resort is a new function,” as Mom Tri points out. “They’re not building a traditional hotel, a temple or a palace. They’re building a resort – something new.” So, as he suggests, perhaps anything that is perceived as useful may legitimately be appropriated: “Where you’re building on a Phuket hillside, for example, raising villas or pavilions on posts makes perfect sense.” With the traditional house, it was a matter of protection from floods and wild animals; with the modern resort villa, it’s a matter of affording the best views for the greatest number of units. “Function is the starting point for the architect,” says Mom Tri, “but they can certainly borrow from traditional architectural design to create a sense of place.”
Prominent Thai architect Sumet Jumsai has expressed it this way: “Architecture should reinterpret, should move on. But in order to project yourself forward successfully you have also to project yourself backwards. You must be totally at ease with history and the future.”
Most of Phuket’s resorts are thoroughly modern. But they manage to incorporate the best of the old while creating something new and distinctive – something appropriate both to the needs and tastes of an international clientele and to their own natural and cultural setting.