Mahidol Student Housing Project | ARCH DSGN II

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Sasi Ounpiyodom 6238110225 Instructor: Eduardo Cassina Course: ARCH DSGN2 AY: 1/2021

MU Student Housing Located on the Thawi Watthana canal at the edge of Northwest Bangkok, the chosen site is an abandoned office building. With structural elements still well intact, it raises an opportunity for adaptive reuse.

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Us e r Stu d y Due to its close proximity to Mahidol University, the site is proposed to be a student housing. Target users include Mahidol students from high school to university, Thai and international. User experience is at the core of the design development as a bottom-up approach. Units are designed with enough modularity to be composed as massing in the next phase.

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P L AN S

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SEC T IO N S

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G RID To create a dialogue between the existing building and the new dwelling units, a grid strategy is utilized. The grid drawn intuitively parallel to the canal is used for directing private space, dedicated for dwelling units. Meanwhile, the grid parallel to the existing building directs public space.

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M ASSIN G Once the grid rule was established, units are arranged in a cloud-like manner enrobing the existing building. Timber columns are used as a structural element, in contrary to the brutal feeling of concrete in the existing builiding.

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FAC ADE The arrangements of the units determine the facade. Some spaces are retracted back from the canal, while spaces like balconies reach forward. Consequently, the arrangement of the units become a facade that helps frame ventilation, with different orientations and variations between heights and depths of open spaces.

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FO ST E RI N G SO C IAL IN T E RAC T I O N S Semi-private spaces are created in between dwelling units and in between each cluster. Freestanding furnitures are placed as to foster social interactions within and between floors. This modular space also allows an opportunity for the students to characterize oen living spaces.

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At the ground floor, we also follow the same principle but in a more abstracted way. This dug out ground is extruded from a shape that’s created by an intersection between the two grids, embodying the intersection between public and private.

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Over in the existing building, an empty shell, is utilized as indoor public space. The main program includes a co-working space. The rest of the programs include see through conference rooms, a gym, a workshop and a studio for students.

It is meant for public use as well as to generate income.

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PROC ESS O F T R ANSFO R M ATI O N Current state: building unused

Public paths paved, dug out ground, shallow ponds

Vertical Circulation as core

Timber Structure

Platforms for connection

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Lastly, the units are populated across the entire structure, repeated and varied at different levels. This strategy of addition to the existing building and the project’s modular nature suggests that it CAN and WILL be built over in the future. In this current timescale, the concept aligns with the narrative of this stage of growth between teenager and adulthood. And thus, the idea of growth and transformation is embodied architecturally on many scales, from the units, to the clusters, to the entire composition and lastly to the community.

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