Architectural Concept
The architectural concept for this project is established by the two impressions taken place once the design team visited the existing site for the first time. The first memorable scene was the beauty of nature as the site is located in a fertile forest with plenty of vegetations and shady trees where some sunlight could penetrate between the dense tree branches and leaves creating green shadows moving on the ground. Another attractive natural element was also impressive, such as tree roots and green moss found on the concrete floors and on the different sizes of the rocks around that area.

The beautiful nature has become one of the unique characteristics that the architects determined to emphasize in this resort. In doing so, a ‘tropical rainforest’, which is commonly discovered in that region, has been set as a substantial guideline for expressly reflecting the mood of living among nature. Also, it has been found that a forest has a general structure of four layers starting from the ground level and shifting up and this structure has been applied to place emphasis on the mood of relaxation in the forest. The four layers in a forest are illustrated as follows;

• ‘Forest Floor’ contains several small plants such as moss and fern, as well as roots of large trees spreading out over a wide area. Furthermore, on the floor, there is a thin layer of fallen natural components from the above layers comprising of leaves, branches, fruits, and seeds.
• ‘Understorey’ is a layer between the layer of ‘Canopy’ and the ‘Forest Floor’. Trunks of large trees, medium and small trees, shrubs, as well as vines and climbers hanging over tree branches are commonly found in this layer.
• ‘Canopy’ is an upper layer for densely overlapping tree branches and leaves, and these could resemble the roof of a forest.
• ‘Emergent Layers’ is the first layer from the top of a forest. In this layer, there are several towering trees intervening over the dense of leaves in the ‘Canopy’ layer.

The other impression was the remarkable folk culture in that region presented in the style of the vernacular architecture, a variety of local materials in the existing buildings, and the unique folk manner of the local people. This impression has become the other mood raised by the architects. Therefore, keeping nearly all of the existing structure and form of the buildings has been one of the design goals. Also, the refreshed materials have been mainly selected to be natural and local, such as wood and timber, rammed earth, and wickerwork or basketry with a local glasslike plant in the sedge family named ‘Krachoot’. On top of that, the distinctive pattern of the manner or the way that the native people sit or lay down has also turned out to be the direction for furniture and space design.

In conclusion, the architectural concept is the combination of both impressions revealed above. Therefore, the priority in the design approach is that the fertile land and the cultural context have to be still unchanged and more value of both aspects has to be increased at the same time. It is believed that these could contribute not only to the particular moods of this project but also to the preservation of both natural elements and extraordinary folk culture in that area.

Constraints and Solutions achieved
There are three types of the existing buildings, including the villas, the lobby, and the restaurant, that required to be renovated to reflect the concept of relaxation with nature and the folk culture, and there were several steps to archive that goal. First of all, the existing structures excluding some parts of the roof structure have been still unchanged. Then, other than highlighting the folk cultural aspect, the ambience of the forest has been generated by applying different characters of the forest layers to address the different issues in each building type. The constraints and solutions for each type of buildings are demonstrated as follows;

1. The Villas – Rooms of Green
The limitation of the existing villas or the guesthouses was that each building faced the main walking route of the project. This resulted in the negative privacy for the guests as other people walking on that route could see inside each building easily. To address this issue, the ‘Forest Floor’, one of the forest layers, has been applied to create the rooms where are surrounded by a group of shrubs and trees. These green elements would play a vital role as natural blinds to address the issue of privacy and create the ambience of living among nature inside the rooms.

Consequently, there are three ‘Rooms of Green’ created in each villa. The living room and the dining room are arranged in the outdoor and semi-outdoor space respectively by adding step-terraces and changing the former solid roofing material to a transparent one to generate more natural light. The other room is the bedroom situated inside each building but the idea of living among the green is also brought about in this type of room by using the wooden awning windows which could be opened to look below at the ‘Forest Floor’.

On top of that, the folk manner has been integrated into the ‘Rooms of Green’ influenced by the way that the local people sit or lay down. As a result, the furniture design is presented in the pattern of sitting on the floor, sitting or leaning on a local lower seat named ‘Tang’, and sleeping on a local lower bed called ‘Krae’ leading to the value added in the aspect of the folk cultural mood.

2. The Lobby – Check-in in the forest
The major problem found in the existing two-storey lobby building was the inappropriate access since the drop-off is on the ground level where the service area was located, while the reception and the lobby were on the upper floor where could be merely accessed by the outdoor stair. Rearranging all of the functions in the building has become the starting point to eliminate that constraint by relocating the reception and the lobby to the lower floors. Simultaneously, the layer of ‘Understorey’ has been opted to generate the special ambience of ‘Check-in in the forest’ by adding a new platform in front of the building and covering this space with tree leaves instead of the demolished building canopy. All of these could create the new lobby where are braced between the ‘Forest Canopy’ and the ‘Forest Floor’. On top of that, new function rooms have been arranged on the upper floor, including the library and the room for detoxification.

Inside the building, a part of the upper floor was demolished to create the double space for the lobby and this could enhance the comfort level of the space as well as maximize the ability of natural ventilation. The backdrop of this space has been turned into a featured wall influenced by the pattern of the traditional wooden wall. This wall is decorated with photos in various frame sizes arranged without any criterion to reflect the beauty of the folk culture. Additionally, variety types of basketry and wickerwork, which are the attractive identity of this region, are also displayed in this area.

3. The Restaurant – Under tree shade
The size and the limitation of the viewpoint from the building were the main issues in the existing restaurant building. Therefore, the ‘Forest Canopy’ layer has been selected to create the ambience of the ‘space under tree shade’. These spaces have been determined to be enclosed by overlapping dense leaves and some light penetrating between them. In doing so, the building has been exposed to nature by constructing new terraces on both upper and lower floors over the outdoor space where plenty of new trees and shrubs have been planted. The levels of both refreshed terraces are lower than the levels inside the building as this could avoid the obstruction of natural view from the indoor spaces.

On top of that, the mood of the ‘forest roof’ has been highlighted by bringing nature to be closest to the users. Shrubs, vine, and climbers have been introduced around the edges of both floors. As a result, expanding the building into nature and nature into the building could enhance the concept of relaxing under tree shade and get rid of the limitation of viewpoint from the interior spaces.

In conclusion, although all building types were refurbished by keeping almost all of the building structures, the unique value of nature and the culture has been highlighted by those solutions reflected by the architectural concept set at the starting point. Additionally, leaving the existing structures remained could also contribute to reducing waste and saving construction costs for this refurbishment project.

Team:
Architect & Interior Design: Design In Motion Co., Ltd.
Engineer: Warat Suthipornopas
Contractor: Bangkok Group Co., Ltd.
Lead Architects: Narin Bunjun , Nattanan Kanjanasakha ,Jantakarn Vasanasilp , Sasinee Tiengtawat and Sirin Vanichvoranun
Photography: Soopakorn Srisakul