Keeree Tara Riverside is a brand new restaurant intended as a replacement of its
original branch located nearby. The restaurant itself is one of the most popular
and successful Thai restaurants in Kanchanaburi, so the owner decided to
maintain a sense of the traditional Thai style reflected on the building that links to
the Thai dishes served. Due to its small property size, especially when compared
to the required functions of a major restaurant branch, the restaurant needs to be
able to support large-scale events such as seminars, and weddings. This resulted
in having a large commissary kitchen of over a thousand square meters in order to
fully support any future expansions and the nearby branches. Not only that Keeree
Tara has to house a large service facility but as the site is adjacent to the Kwai
river - it is also crucial to take advantage of this view for both the indoor and
outdoor dining zones.
The design process started from the limitation; with finding the most functional
location for most of the services and the commissary kitchen - which takes up
most of the available space on the first floor. This in combination with a high
ceiling results in a large building mass that fills up the space and obstructs the
view of the river. Therefore, the main kitchen and services are placed on the first
level behind a large staircase, which leads all visitors to the second level where
the entry foyer along with other usable functions for guests are located. The foyer
further diverts to the banquet hall on the third level but also continuously leads the
visitors to the dining terrace which has been designed with alternating levels that
gradually gets closer to the river bank, resulting in an area that can be separated
into several dining zones. On the third level, a banquet hall was placed to hold
functions such as seminars or weddings. The hall is surrounded with a veranda
and an additional dining zone with a higher view towards the river.
Another important point was the infusion of “Thainess” into a large-scale building
which was a challenge. Traditionally, large-scale Thai buildings that encompass
wide spans are either temples or palaces. Thai houses are traditionally small-scale
and are often collectively placed in clusters. The architect therefore adopted the
“feelings” and “senses” of Thai architecture into the usable spaces to highlight
this infused Thai atmosphere for the users rather than using direct proportions or
decorative elements from Thai architecture. This interpretation resulted in a large
curved gable roof that is also functional to the building use; the central ridge is
offsetted and centered along the main entrance, slightly tilted to allow for natural
light penetration, creating an axis in ray of light towards the river. The long-side of
the gable roof gradually sloped down to reach the floor which seemingly reduces
its gigantic roof scale. Further, the slope roof on the riverside also operates as a
stairs for the users to access the rooftop bar and the roof deck.
