26 allzone Goes to Phi Phi

It was perhaps our first trip altogether: allzone goes to Phi Phi Island.

The story is: early this year, I was contacted from Far Diow Foundation to design a small building in Baan Leam Tong School on Phi Phi Island. It is a learning center and small guestrooms for NGO staffs and tourists (who are willing to stay in the school and get mingled with the local more than a normal tourist). So the school can earn some money from the guestrooms. Also the learning center will offer professional trainings serving tourist industry for the villagers and the school students who cannot go for higher education in the main land.

First I thought to design this building within allzone office. But after discussing with Far Diow, we agreed that to involve my students would be more interesting because of more activities. The locals (especially kids) would have also a chance to expose to more 'normal' people, not only the tourists. (In this area of Phi Phi Island, most of the tourists are fancy tourists in 4-5 star resort hotel. Although the villagers are living next to these hotels, the contact is almost zero somehow). Although it is a lot more complex to do the project with my students, I also believe that it would be a good chance for my students to be in a real situation with several layers of problems. So the project is organized as a Design-Build Workshop Class for INDA (International Program in Design & Architecture) students. Some of the students from Thai program also wanted to participate as their Individual Study - altogether 24 of them. We had several lessons of lectures and discussions for about 2 months before going to Phi Phi Island during last 27 July-2 August. You can see our class documentation at Phi Phi Design Workshop Blog.

Anyway, at the end, allzone will have to be in charge for the more professional side of the project (which the students are not able to handle properly), I involved allzoners from the very beginning. I was in the workshop as a workshop leader/teacher, Nat was invited critic, Sora+Pan+Namkhang are my Teaching Assistants. :) Besides enjoying the sea, we all worked very hard!

The sea at Leam Tong private beach.





During the student presentations...:)


Nat also helped a lot during the workshop...


Sora, the TA..always stylish.


Pan was testing the one-to-one scale model of my students.. he looks like school kid rather than a university student.. :O But of course, he was popular among the school and students and my students!


Namkhang at the beach and in the class room during the presentation session - very serious taking note.


Enjoying the foods and the drinks (of course)...


Working working and working...



All the details of the workshop is HERE. Let's see how it would come out at the end. Hope the building will be a nice one. In the next two months we have to develope the 6 schematic designs and choose one to be built.