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In a Thai House for Three Generations, a Picturesque Minimalism

A series of picture-perfect framed views marks this sweet house in Thailand by TA-CHA Design.

Seen either from the front or the side, the dining room presents a perfectly composed image.

Similarly, the picturesque view of the living room offers well framed shots from any angle.

For the three generations who will live in the 4,000 sq ft house, the design represents the Thai concept of ‘Chan’ or connection – of people with people.

And Chan also refers to connecting with nature – the flowing indoor-outdoor space created invites lounging outdoors in the sun.

Its entire front wall is made up of bi-folded glass doors that open the full length of the room to the outdoors.

In a new take on traditional Thai architecture, a stack effect pulls hot air up and out of the house by drawing cool air in through the open center of the house, where a tree grows, to the four bedrooms upstairs.

An open staircase entering the south side of the house cools the house by pulling heat in past the tree and out of the roof at the top.

To one side of this airy center, a daybed offers refuge to curl up with a book, sandwiched between two wings of storage.

Providing both charm and traditional practicality, the minimalist house is an urbane solution to multifamily living in a busy Thai city.

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Minimalist Spa Seaside Retreat just Two Hours from Bangkok

Guests entering Thailand’s Hôtel de la Paix resort ascend a grand flight of stairs as wide as a small hill.

The ultimate in minimalist elegance, the serene spa retreat offers a rooftop view out over Cha-Am Beach near Hua Hin.

The deliciously tactile, clean-lined contemporary airy spaces blend indoors with outdoors in both dramatic and casual ease.

Throughout, Thai designer Duangrit Bunnag embraces the breeziest simplicity of design.

Bedrooms are quietly contemplative, pared-down, refined.

The plain concrete walls soar high above silky white duvets.

The architects employ a surprising textural palette that varies through the resort.

Cool spa treatment rooms and baths are clad in limestone and proportioned like Roman baths, encasing the visitor in a total silence.

In the balmy and humid tropical climate, open pavilion spaces are the rule.

Limestone floors provide a cool respite from the tropical heat.

For sea worshippers; a simple boutique-chic pavilion is surrounded by tea light candles.

Concrete is used for bedroom walls but glossy black tile is employed to clad an exterior wall, richly contrasted with a stark white umbrella and red cusions.

The result is a stunningly sedative seaside resort that batters the senses with variety and contrast.

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Lovely Glass Extension Lights up a London Mews House

The simplest glass box appears to slice open the ground floor of a semi-detached Victorian house in the West Venice neighborhood in London.

Making no attempt to stay in the character of the original, London-based DOSarchitects simply bring a glass box of plain air and light into the ground floor.

For cramped Londoners, such airy light and space are a real luxury.

The extension transitions between old and new by just reworking the ground floor, where most of the original features had already been replaced by the previous owners anyway.

To create a more family-friendly space in the lower ground floor they eliminated some of the internal partitions so the light is drawn deep in to the old ground floor.

Upstairs, the original antiquity is retained in all its genteel old-world sweetness.

This is where the architects keep some of the splendid features and character that their client had fallen in love when finding the house.

The typical old Victorian claw foot tub gets sympatico new fittings.

New additions in London must solve the problem of how to add to the architecture of former centuries without mixing two ornate styles that clash.

Sometimes the answer is to use the ‘no-style’ of the simplest possible glass box: leaving the ornate original as the only ‘style’ of the building.