​Sathorn Soi 8, Bangkok
250 sq.m.


A spatial surgery

Sathorn has been one of Bangkok’s CBD for decades without any sign of declining. Skyscrapers and land cost keep rising higher and higher. Recently, the land plot which used to house the magnificent architecture of the Australian Embassy was sold to one of the big-name real-estate developer, for them to demolish the whole compound in order to build another high-rise, hi-end condominium, of course. This kind of cycle defines Sathorn or any other prominent business district. It is th e way it is.

Wan, the owner of A Clay, is a ceramic artist. Her townhouse is on Sathorn Soi 8, an alley which is a part of smaller-roads network connecting Two CBDs of Sathorn Road and Silom Road. It is a network of the back streets of the high streets where Bangkok street life charmingly operates in random. The townhouse stands the last in line of the other once-identical townhouses, now customised to suit their owner’s needs and taste, also in random. They are originally designed in Neo-Classic, European-styled, a style which once defines one’s high social status in Thailand, like a marble-cladded, high-ceiling living room in a high-rise condominium of today. Maybe they have been standing on a plot which used to house something very culturally important too.

The house and the decorative elements are very well preserved. It only needs some spatial surgery to accommodate the new multi-functional programme of a ceramic studio, a cafe’ and a gallery. Existing separated private rooms are transformed into one big hall where layers of public functions interweave. The elements are cut-and-pasted rather than completely replaced to form new spatial relationship. All new interior spaces are bright and interconnected while serving their purposes. The exterior are again preserved, without any
intervention of a contemporary fancy facade. As we found it, we think it is already beautiful before us and it should looks and feels like home, like it has always been.

We asked Wan to make her own tiles for the bar area. The sense of her handcrafted, imperfect work makes the space even more uniquely homey. The key interior colour of indigo is acquired from her brand’s main identity, which is the same as indigo painted in most pottery. It is the re-imagination of existing elements which echoes around the interior space from ceilings, walls, to tiles, tableware and straws.

Opposite to A Clay Cafe’ and A Clay Ceramic is a legendary beef noodle restaurant called Yee-Jay where office workers are willing to wait in a long queue on the side of the road in Bangkok tropical weather to get in everyday at lunchtime. We can see the queue from here from every level, from the counterbar on the second floor, the bar, the front yard and also the basement. This might be the greatest advantage of the whole thing. We don’t need to be in line for so long to get in, we just wait and see and enjoy our coffee until the queue dissolves. Now there are more and more office workers who can crack the same trick. Come on in then, You are very welcomed.