A House’ is designed for a young couple who decided to live together on a plot of land with the parents existing house. The design balances the openness of the house while maintaining the couple’s privacy. GD receives 2013 Asia Pacific Property Awards in architectural design category for “Best Architecture Single Residence Thailand” for this house design. Due to the tension between the need to be both closed and opened which arises from the client’s needs and the site’s context, the building mass has been designed as a U-shape with an enclosed courtyard that serve as both a private space and a connection to the client’s parents’existing house. Therefore, the design team has envisioned the building skin— an interface between the inside and the outside- –that can become a mediator between the two opposing forces. In the other word, to make it acts as a switch regulating between being a barrier and being a connector.Vernacular solutions are carefully studied, namely the sliding panel, which was prevalent in history for its ability to allow wind passage during daytime and able to slide close during the night time for privacy. Such solutions have been reinterpreted into a skin capable of adjusting itself based on varying needs of modern days. Building environmental simulation tools have been used to identify areas which need such flexibility in order to fine-tune the design of the skin.

Courtyard entrance looking into living space