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My wife and I are going to build a traditional Thai house near her family home in North Thailand. Can anyone suggest architects or designers? Actually, any advice about building in Thailand would be appreciated.

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rhleedy wrote:My wife and I are going to build a traditional Thai house near her family home in North Thailand. Can anyone suggest architects or designers? Actually, any advice about building in Thailand would be appreciated.

You may want to take a look at thai-land-house dot com They're in Khon Kaen Province

together with my wife we just finished our traditional thai teak wood home in Bangkok. Welcome to pop in and see. We used local carpenters - in the north there is a different style. The best to use the local craftsmen and they will know exactly what and how to do. Talk to your local builders - they have plans ready to be used.

Brand new 5 bedroom teak wood holiday home in Bangkok Taling Chan
district.

It's by Thanon Wongwan Rob Nok and by the Klong Bang Tal - 5
minutes drive to South Bus Terminal (towards Kanchanaburi, Cha Am, Hua
Hin, Phuket, Krabi and Malaysia) on Thonburi & 15 minutes to Chao
Phraya River, Khaosan Rd, the Old King's Palace & the Wat Pho. There
is also a frequent bus to Suvarnabhumi Airport.

Pictures on request

check it out on google maps:

lat=13.79381307 latitude lon=100.408499781 longitude

Around are traditional houses with orchards, gardens, peace and clean
air. Suit family with children and animals as the place is safe and
has a
terrace under the elevated on stilts house. Goes cheap, even short let
- as I can't go on holidays to Bangkok as often as I use to go. At the
moment stays there my daughter with her children, but she can move to
my sister in law house just the next door.

A much better option of
staying in Bangkok than the town centre, with it's noise, pollution,
traffic jams and crowds of tourists. In a Taling Chan home-stay you
will immerse yourself in a traditional lifestyle and learn a little
bit about Thai culture and customs.

Walks through the fruit orchards
and flower groves make a very challenging experience. You can feel
here like living in the traditional thai willage - yet 5 minutes walk
is 7/11 shop, cash machine and a daily street market. A short ride
there is a famous traditional thai floating market in Taling Chan by
the Chakphra Canal.

There are several nice homestays in that area -
old thai teak wood houses on stilts just overlooking slowly moving
canals. You are in the middle of verdant and vast, lush gardens. There
is nothing comparable to it in the whole of Thailand - a dream student
home stay or a holiday accommodation.

==================

There is something subtly exotic about wood. No other substance seems
to mature in the same way, changing it's texture and smell in a
second life that defies life's normal rhythm.

The traditional Thai teak house represent a style of living that is
almost absent from Bangkok these days - with citywide modernisation,
it is hard to find older houses that are still in use.

Villages such as Lampang in the North, featuring predominantly teak
houses, are becoming more and more rare as people switch to modern
building materials.

Built around the concept of simplicity, Thai stilt houses were the
functional solution to a hot climate in the days before air-
conditioning.

The gap between the floor and ground enables a cool breeze to to
naturally ventilate the entire house, and the open window style still
in practice today further aids this process.

Building with native teakwood gave the houses a natural beauty that
is still imitated in today's architecture (think of the sweeping,
upturned eaves of many Thai roofs.)

Prized for it's durability and attractive finish, teak has been
logged almost to the point of extinction, and the magnificent trees
(sometimes reaching 50m in height) are today rarely found outside
dedicated plantations.

However, there remain some people trying to revive the traditions of
teak workmanship, incorporating it into new homes and proving that
old materials can be re-used with stunning effect.

In the heart of the Taling Chan district lies a canal that seems
entirely detached from the regular bustle of city life, yet connected
to the rest of the klongs that form the city's ancient corollaries.

I am introduced to this world by Kanya, a masseuse currently
overseeing the production of a new home with her husband Yan. She
leads me along the narrow path by the canal and I soak up the
atmosphere of a quiet backwater entirely different from the Bangkok I
am used to.

Across from us sits a magnificent example of wooden architecture, an
obviously new house by the water's edge surrounded by palm fronds.

Kanya explains that this has been built with the express purpose of
being a party house, and I feel a pang of jealousy for their
frivolously beautiful enterprise.

Just back from the canal's edge sits her house, an obvious labour of
love that sits next to her sister's, also being built with an eye for
past wooden beauty.

While the ground floor retains some modern materials, the upper floor
is furnished with a stunning mix of old teak boards and ornately
carved pine shutters, the darker wood setting off the light to
beautiful effect.

Inside the house the smells of wood craftsmanship pervade the rooms,
and there is a feeling of inherent age that is difficult to achieve
in new properties.

The main room upstairs stretches the breadth of the house,
overlooking a patch of genuine wilderness that teems with life, and
I'm pleased to hear they have no plans to get rid of it. "We wouldn't
want to lose the birdsong" explains Kanya.

Throughout the house, we walk on gigantic beams that have the solid,
immovable quality of wood that has been in existence for a great deal
of time; "100 years old, maybe more" she says proudly.

Taken together, the ancient wood and the laid back pace of the canal
provide an intoxicating mix that would likely tempt even a die-hard
village-dweller to consider city life.

My Taling Chan visit has reminded me that Bangkok is a city of many
faces, where the old can sometimes lie comfortably beside the new
(without complaining about the price of milk these days.)

And while the building of super-malls with concrete and steel
continues apace in Bangkok, there are signs that the traditional is
also making a comeback, with interest in attractions such as Vimanmek
mansion (a gigantic teak house made exclusively with teak - no
nails!) and Jim Thompson's house on the rise.

It seems that there are also a number of people who are willing to
sacrifice convenience for beauty in building of their own Thai homes,
as the growing number of teak queries for 'traditional thai teak wood
homestay Bangkok' posted online show.

A trip along the Chao Phraya shows a great deal about the city's
character, from individual riverside lives to gigantic trade barges,
peaceful restaurants to stunning Wats best seen by boat.

But a surprising part of this journey are the properties that have
fallen by the wayside of development, beautiful teak houses left
abandoned by their owners that have the potential to be truly amazing
locations.

With all the development occurring along the riverbanks, it is a
shock to see such treasures lying idle, and if Thailand is to
maintain it's heritage this would surely be a good place to start.
After all, a teak house party by the river is not to be sniffed at...

The Taling Chan house featured is available for long and short term
rents - contact Jan

Pretty cool those construction drawings at thai-land-house dot com<a href="http://phuketrenthouse.com"><img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/746603/static/haus.gif" alt="Phuket Rent House" border="0" /></a>