Disclaimer: This project is the group project that my friends and I had been working together as a team. The idea and the design didn’t occur from just me.
This is the tourist center project at the northern part of Thailand. We worked on this project in the 3rd year of our bachelor’s degree (2013). The initial idea for this project happened form the thought about how the tourists find their way when they are lost without any tools, the answer is “The North Star” or “The Polaris”.
The challenge of this project is the existing building, it’s an old governmental office building with three wings, so it’s quite difficult to manage the space. Nonetheless, with a strong concept, we could develop it into the design easily as shown in the diagram below, each part of the building has its own unique function, which also works as a visitor magnet for each wing.
The west wing is the hostel area, the east wing is the shop and restaurant area, the north wing is the exhibition and the viewpoint spot, and lastly, the middle of the building is the information and customer service area.
The modern look of the design is from the combination between the shape line of the Ursa Minor stars map and the traditional art pattern of northern Thailand. We use that motif for both exterior and interior design.
*the development of the building’s mass*
