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Architects: b l a n k s t u d i o
- Area: 571 m²
- Year: 2019
- Photographs: Baanlaesuan.com, Tanachat Sooksawasd
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Manufacturers: COTTO, At East Lighting, Lamena, TOA
Text description provided by the architects. Wonderwall Hotel is a site located in Chiang Mai, the province in the northern part of Thailand which houses several cultural and traditional tourist spots. The hotel is close to Tha-Pae gate, another important landmark inside the old Chiang Mai town. The big site hosting the hotel belongs to the hotel’s partner, which consists of several houses and some part of it was once constructed with dormitory. Thus in 2018 the hotel owner decided to reform the old dormitory to be WONDERWALL. The hotel was built upon the old 3-stories dormitory and now consists of 14 rooms. The other new building was also built to be the lobby of the hotel, while Youngfolk Café, the well-known café from Jom Thong, Chiang Mai, also decided to open their second branch here.
Meanwhile, the space is designed to be a sharing space which allows the hotel to operate simultaneously with the café so that it can also accommodate external people too. Upon the second floor of the building, there locates cute little office of Blankstudio, the partners and designers of this hotel. The concept of this hotel is defined by the beauties of incompletion of materials, with the help of old city’s gates and walls close to the project which the designers chose to adapt with designing. They think that those gates and walls nowadays are not as in complete and neat conditions as they used to be. However, those imperfections don’t mean ugliness; in fact, they express the senses of place really well and hold their own beauty and uniqueness. The architects have applied the inspiration firstly with the walls of the hotel to build up new elements to the wall. The wall’s outline looks more combust by the combination of metal cells and disarranged bricks.
By putting bricks halfway of the wall, not only it can create privacy to the project vision-wise, but it also expresses ‘Imperfection’ of those walls, which can be a very good representative of the concept of this design. The rusty metal texture, rough cement-coated wall, naked concretes inside the building, as well as the furniture inside the café, are all meticulously chosen to express genuineness of materials. The architects believe that the textures of every material contain their own beauty when arranged properly in simple ways. It even creates more uniqueness to the project by choosing to lessen fanciness of the materials, which would certainly give visitors satisfying and new experiences. The rooms are renovated from the old dorm’s rooms, making them quite small.
That’s why the bathroom walls of Superior Room were replaced with Reeded glass in order that they can be sparser. White coated walls were chosen to make the rooms bright and light, while the Suite Rooms were once 2 dorm rooms which are now connected to each other and can accommodate up to 3 people; the wall in front of the room is now replaced frosted glasses and located close to the living space, making this type of room even sparser and suitable for accommodating group tour. Landscape-wise, the design is based on sparseness of space.
Tall trees and bushes are two main plants to be used to create shades for the garden and hotel so that they won’t make the space too dense. Betel trees and Gooseberry Trees were there prior to the construction and the architects decided to keep most of the old trees, therefore only 2 new Buoyancy trees are planted where they can create shade for the lobby building in the afternoon. The walkways are laid with the very same bricks used for building the hotel’s wall. This walkway is set down on the garden to lead walker to each spot of the project. On the other hand, the garden segments are divided by merely one material to expresses simplicity; gray pebbles, fountain grass, and red grass are the materials picked to cover soil and create pleasance within this ‘Wonderwall’
