Architecture Inside Out
Instructor: Raveevarn Choksombatchai
Type: Bathhouse
This design starts from the research of formal syntax, order and geometric relations, then creates a “solid and void” construct. Based on this construct, the “solid” is opened up more to provide more possibilities for space and sequential manipulation. The design addressed the integrity of inside and outside, architecture and landscape, form and function. This building serves as a bathhouse on the mountain. A “medium” space, which is considered as the core space of the building, is invented as an intermediation between “dry space” and “wet space”. Through the manipulation of dimension, space reinforces space or contradicts its former one.
The overall strategy of this building is having several staircases overlap with each other in different orientations. The overlap of these oblique volumes created triangular spaces of different sizes. Before people enter this building, they have to go through a long straight path pointing directly to the entrance, then bow their heads through a cramped staircase, and suddenly, they would see the open and well-lit central space at the end of the cramped space. Thus, visitors’ sensation is manipulated by the power of contrast.