Buddhist

Buddhanimit Temple, located in a rural community in Udon Thani, Thailand, is a temple school that provides free education for families who are unable to afford public education. Due to increasing number of students enrolled as novice monks, an extension dormitory building is required. The original brief of the project calls for a two-storey dormitory building under a donated 6 million baht (EUR.154,000) budget. After thorough site inspections and workshops with monks and novices, the architects proposed an economical scheme to renovate an existing abandoned classroom building on site into a dormitory. This leaves enough money to provide additional library and washroom for the novice monks. Novice Living Quarters intends to pr... More

Form and materials used in the centre relate to the rural vernacular building, but used in a new and fresh way. As the centre is financed mainly by gifts from community members and friends, one of the design briefs was to maximize the the space while minimizing the cost. The facade of the centre – along with the cladding of the roof – is made of corrugated steel, a material popular for its low cost, strength, and long life. Western red cedar beams and white wood window frames mark the transitions from one steel sheet to the next, with the horizontal lines of the beams giving the building depth and profile. Three different colors of steel are used, and in three different wavelengths. The same approach of using raw materials in this... More