Articles by chlsey

A Narrow Alleyway that Leads to the Doorstep of My House – A narrow alleyway in the neighborhood of Seoul City leads to the “Alley House”. The Alley House creates no boundary between the streets and itself. The alleyway extends to the doorstep of every unit in the building. It is one building, but, at the same time, is a group of stacked individual houses linked by alley-like stairs. We tried to find wisdom in the alleyway to have five families and a small office in the small plot of land with 106 square meters, not even enough for a single-family.

After the completion of the first project in Dalat two years ago, we were contacted again for a new assignment – designing a weekend house where some areas could also be used for running the client’s small business. Due to the pandemic situation, the business plan had gone through different changes from the bakery, bookshop café, and finally a bedding showroom.

We embarked on a journey to redefine simplicity and minimalism. Various parameters lead the concept of our design, from the choice of material to the integration of vegetation and light. We have worked on this project inside out, sculpting spaces according to form and function while allowing each material to create the requested atmosphere.

The site location is in the central urban area of a local city in Japan. Located in a corner of a wide area of land including the main building (Omoya) and the storehouse (Kura). Although being a central urban area, due to the recent depopulation, many vacancies surrounded it. The area itself appeared to be a place with a homogenous design, needing diversity. Still, surrounding the city was a beautiful mountain landscape. This impressive view is what I decided to incorporate into my design.

Named after the Rubik’s cube toys, the nine-boxes form could be interpreted as a subconscious reference to the feng shui Bagua map. It’s a belief that can’t be replaced by most houses in the Chinese Indonesian community. The challenge lay in how the architecture can accommodate and combine feng shui to form an atypical modern house with unique functions based on the whole family member and their living environment.

Located in a sprawling housing estate in Nonthaburi province, considered the northern suburb of Bangkok, TYH House is situated on an irregular-shaped plot of land fronting part of the bulbous end of a cul-de-sac. The house is a vibrant collage of contrasting elements, achieved through both the use of a multi-layered material palette and a variety of spatial qualities, the most significant of which is the sense of privacy that coexists with an openness to its surrounding.

Home to a young family with working parents the design had to offer a relaxing ambiance. Both Eranda and Dhanushka drive to Colombo for work from their home at Thalahena, Malabe and from the onset, they both wanted an extent of privacy that would still allow them to enjoy the outdoors; and the idea of a courtyard house was born.

The site is an hour’s drive away through the East from Bangkok; Chachoengsao, in which the suburb’s living environment is closed to a city, many factories, and the sea (Gulf of Thailand), which produces an excessive level of soil salinity. A non-terrain land with an artificial pond is where the villa is located.

The site is an hour’s drive away through the East from Bangkok; Chachoengsao, in which the suburb’s living environment is closed to a city, many factories, and the sea (Gulf of Thailand), which produces an excessive level of soil salinity. A non-terrain land with an artificial pond is where the villa is located.