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Baan You Yen

Baan You Yen

Bangkok, Thailand

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Baan You Yen

Bangkok, Thailand

Firm

Studio Miti

Type

Residential › Private House

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2025

SIZE

5000 sqft - 10,000 sqft

BUDGET

$10M - 50M

Within a community surrounded by residential buildings and shophouses in the Bang Pho district of Bangkok, The property owner envisioned a family residence for four family members: the father, mother, elder son, and younger son. The clients mandated a high degree of privacy and preferred utilizing locally available exposed brick as the primary construction material. Crucially, due to the clients' health requirements, the residential spaces demanded natural ventilation without relying on continuous air conditioning throughout the day. This highly challenging brief in Bangkok's tropical climate required the designer to investigate specific brickwork methodologies to facilitate thermal dissipation. The designer observed that while the residence is situated within a dense neighborhood, it benefits from its proximity to the Chao Phraya River, which serves as a major urban wind corridor for Bangkok. Furthermore, the site orientation faces south, optimizing wind harvesting. The architectural resolution began with the study of traditional vernacular typologies, where passive cooling techniques typically involved surrounding perimeter vegetation for shading, water bodies for evaporative cooling, and deep overhanging eaves. These traditional methods aimed to mitigate direct solar heat gain before it penetrated the building envelope, which was feasible due to the expansive site footprints available in the past. In the contemporary context, land values have inflated, consequently reducing buildable residential footprints. Locating adequate space for extensive vegetation and water bodies has become unfeasible. Therefore, generating immediate structural shading or self-shading mechanisms within close proximity to the building envelope became the primary spatial method to resolve footprint constraints and prevent solar heat gain. The architectural mechanism employed to resolve this configuration involves fragmenting the building mass into three primary volumes, intersected by two narrow vertical voids on the south and north axes to channel airflow into the structure. Thermodynamically, cooler air drops and enters the habitable spaces, while hot, buoyant air rises and is evacuated through these vertical shafts out of the roofscape. Concurrently, these two voids function as micro-courtyards that introduce soil moisture and vegetation shading to enhance local relative humidity. Regarding spatial programming, the designer allocated low-frequency functions to the ground level, incorporating a small studio for the elder son, a clinic for the younger son, and a parking portal. This level also includes a service and laundry zone for the mother, which directly benefits from continuous cross-ventilation channeled through the adjacent side-yard voids. High-frequency communal living zones comprising the living room, dining area, kitchen, parental master bedroom, and a multi-purpose hall were elevated to the second level to maximize wind intake. This vertical placement aligns with the rooflines and wind gaps of the opposing two-story neighborhood, allowing unobstructed airflow into this specific datum. Furthermore, this level is programmed as a Universal Space with zero-threshold flooring to ensure seamless and safe accessibility for the elderly parents, supplemented by an integrated elevator core for optimized vertical mobility. The third level accommodates private bedrooms for the two sons, bifurcated into the west and east wings. The central circulation zone features a void continuous with the lower multi-purpose hall, establishing volumetric openness and integrating adjustable fenestrations designed to flush out radiant heat emitted from the roof assembly. The roof terrace functions primarily as a weather enclosure, with the added utility of providing safe and direct access for long-term structural maintenance. Concurrently, it serves as a highly private, panoramic viewing platform overlooking the Bangkok skyline. Another defining architectural component is the masonry envelope wrapping the building. Based on material tectonics, brick exhibits high thermal mass capacity; it absorbs and stores heat efficiently but delays conductive heat transfer to other structural components, while dissipating latent heat rapidly during non-solar periods and at night. This material understanding dictated the design of the south façade, which is the primary windward envelope. In this zone, the designer deliberately utilized an elongated, protruding brick pattern to extend the wind channel. This increased surface area maximizes the opportunity for the southern brickwork to absorb and mitigate thermal energy longer than other orientations. Guided by tropical wind dynamics, the designer engineered building wind gaps and two vertical voids to elevate and flush out high-temperature air, leaving low-temperature air to infiltrate the structure, resulting in an interior microclimate cooler than the external ambient temperature. These two vertical voids successfully increase the overall surface area of the architecture, structurally isolating the walls of individual rooms and multiplying the fenestration apertures entering the building core. On the solid east and west façades, a cavity wall configuration (double-layer brickwork) was implemented with an internal air gap to absorb radiant heat, effectively breaking the thermal bridge and preventing heat transmission into the interior living zones. The selection of brick pavers for the roof surface aims to reduce direct thermal loading on the underlying structural concrete slab. The masonry skin shields the concrete by absorbing the heat and limiting conductive transfer, which mitigates structural thermal expansion and contraction, thereby preventing long-term concrete fracturing and subsequent water ingress. Because the brick dissipates heat rapidly during the evening, the roof terrace becomes thermally comfortable for private observation of the Bangkok skyline at dusk. The requirement for high privacy was resolved through the tectonic manipulation of brick to create a secure perimeter without inducing visual claustrophobia. The designer engineered a perforated masonry configuration that appears highly porous when viewed from the dimly lit interior, yet maintains visual opacity when viewed from the highly illuminated exterior. This mechanism operates on the contrast of relative luminosity between interior and exterior viewpoints. Consequently, occupants inside the residence experience spatial openness and unobstructed exterior views within an appropriate distance, while the interior remains completely screened from public view, directly satisfying the client's objective. This architecture serves as a critical synthesis of design methodology, construction execution, material tectonics, and stringent budgetary constraints. It demonstrates the structural honesty of brick as a viable material within a hot-humid tropical climate. Ultimately, it is an architecture that resolves geographic context, user requirements, and contemporary constraints, resulting in the completed structure.

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Baan You Yen

Bangkok, Thailand

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Baan You Yen

Bangkok, Thailand

Other Projects by Studio Miti

Sataa Resort Nan

Studio Miti Office

Athita pool villa and spa

Seen House

Arrom Orchid's

Forest House

Baan You Yen

Bangkok, Thailand

Product Spec Sheet

Collaborating Firms

Team