51 Thai Yo - 太陽 - ไทยโย

Few days ago, we just dismantled our first exhibition & exhibition design at Bangkok Art & Culture Center - BACC - (the only and recently opened contemporary art museum in Bangkok).

The exhibition, organized by Ministry of Culture and Bangkok University Creative Center (BUCC), aims to emphasize on cultural exchanges between Japan & Thailand via the works of Thai artists and designers which somehow are related to Japanese culture


The difficulty of this exhibition is to display both art and design items in the gallery space which is mainly designed for 'Modern Art'. How to put them together? Moreover, as usual, the budget and schedule are very tight -_-". We come up with the structure to define the space for design items, while leaving the art pieces in the space of the gallery in between the structure.


The main image of the exhibition is this small houses altogether composing a picture of 'a village' - could be Japanese or Thai. Each house is to house small design objects upon category. Originally we wanted to use a super common, generic tent structure used in any temporary situation here in Thailand. However, to rent for more than one month during our exhibition periods (4 March - 8 April) the tent is not cheaper than custom made one with a very light metal structure. So we did design several sizes of the houses upon the objects inside.


The rows of the houses create a kind of 'urban' space in between, where all the major art pieces are displayed.


Since the budget is extremely tight, we had to come up with a very cheap materials for the house walls. We finally end up with simple long white paper sheets which is less than 10 Bhat per sq.m. including the installing cost. Also white paper has a strong root in Japanese architecture. However the space wrapped with white paper with a very simple and light tectonic as we do here is very different from the way Japanese would do. Perhaps this is a very Thai tectonic... :)

We did some experiments at all(zone) with the generic rental tent structure.


At night, the look from outside is not bad. But unfortunately the gallery space is not that dark (the 8th floor is the space with a lot of uncontrollable natural lights -_-"). So the effect did not really happen at the actual exhibition. Also at the beginning we wanted to weave the paper sheets to give more strength, but the process was too long and the paper itself got wrinkled.


We got Tanakul Workgroup, our super contractor, to do this urgent and low budget work again. Thanks to them. During the set up, to have the structures without papers are not bad too.... next time then.


Besides the super workers from Tanakul, we had to supervise and help installing a lot during those 3-4 days. Thanks to Purich and his friends Ohm, Ken and Pik for helping us too.


After the exhibition was more or less completed, someone died. :o

On the opening day, the exhibition was promoted around Pathumwan intersection where BACC is located. The overall graphic design of the exhibition is the works of Practical Studio.


At the opening party, apart from Minister of Culture, and all the big guys in the ministry, we had a very famous super classic singer, Suthep Wongkamheng and a very famous contemporary singer Pod Modern Dog, singing some Japanese & Thai songs (they work in Japan) with our 'paper houses' as a background.


At the entrance of the exhibition.


The first house of 4,000 manga books by Thai cartoonists.



The overall ambient of the exhibition.


The space out of the houses is for the art pieces. All the art pieces are handle by Supernormal Studio. It was the first time we worked with them, and they are great!


At the entrance of each house, visitors have to get through the sheets of paper, the same experience as getting through Noren (暖簾) in front of an entrance in Japan. The height of the noren define the way the interior space is displayed from outside the house.


The design objects displayed inside the 'paper houses'. The side 'doors' connecting the houses are to lead the visitors from one house to another transversally.



The installation of wHY architecture & Kulapat Yantrasast. The 2LDK in Japanese apartment system.


The installation of Kris Manopimok, a lighting designer of LD 49. He also helped us a lot for the overall lighting design of this exhibition.


The art pieces of Navin Ravanchaikul and Yuri Kensaku.


The dress from banana leaf as an art work of Chakkrit Chimnok.


The latest collection of a fashion designer 'Thirst' brand. They established this brand specifically for Japanese market. Pretty cool indeed.


Actually all(zone) also displayed our work in the exhibition too, but this will be another post then.

We had a great fun and were extremely tired of the exhibition, however, we met a lot of interesting people. Thanks to the key player BUCC for the overall exhibition too. :) Until next time.

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13 Andon Ryokan Tokyo

This trip to Tokyo, I stayed at a small, boutique, but very cheap ryokan (in comparison with the money you pay and what you get) : Andon Ryokan.
Situated in a very quiet residential neighborhood, where the real people in Tokyo live, on the East side of the city - two station away from Ueno Station on Subway Hibiya line.
It is designed by Masayuki Irie- Professor of Graduate Architecture Research Department, Science and Engineering, Waseda University and awarded as a selected work of 2005 by Journal of Architecture and Building Science Architectyral Institute of Japan. It is not very fancy building, but everything is thought through.

Usually in a ryokan (a traditional inn) in Japan (those who experienced would know) you have to share a bath, a toilet and so on - for those who are not used to, it is quite strange and inconvenient. If you budget is tight, it is even worse because a cheap ryokan is quite sad, and smelly, not to mention cleanliness.

This one is by far the best I have ever experienced in Japan (after living there several years) within 4,000 yen per night range: modern in design and facilities but still carries some ryokan spirits.
The ryokan even offers you a collections of DVD movies and DVD player in each room.
Moreover, the staffs are friendly and could speak enough English to communicate with guests - quite rare in any ryokan.

The glass facade lit up by night through the windows of those small rooms...







The corridor with the lighting only at the floor where you have to take off and put in your shoes. This confirm my theory about Japanese space that usually it is lit up only at necessary spots to disquise the very tiny size of any room - when you don't see the whole clearly, you don't know how big it is actually.



At the each end of the corridor, there is a window where light get through with some 'Japanese' decorations.





The room is very small (aroud 5 tatami mat), only 1.8 m wide, and 4.5 m. long. But strange enough, you would not feel that so small. Every square centimeter is designed with very careful thought.



To me, the most interesting thing is that although the room is very tiny and really next to each other, you would not hear the noise from your neighbors at all. It must be the super insulation in between the thin partitions of the room that run along the structure.



The small entrance lobby where they serve breakfast upon your request, very pleasant space.





I know, by now you are curious. Here is the website of the ryokan: http://www.andon.co.jp/home/index.html
Enjoy Tokyo!

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