Rain Tree House

Chiang Mai, Thailand

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Rain Tree House

Chiang Mai, Thailand

Firm

Hanabitate Architects

Type

Residential › Private House

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2023

SIZE

3000 sqft - 5000 sqft

BUDGET

Undisclosed

Photos

Warayuth Tositarat (18), Hanabitate Architects (17)

The design originates from a trapezoid-shaped plot of land, existing two giant rain trees in the middle of the land plot and long-distance view of Doi Suthep mountain. The rain trees act as the focal point of the following spatial planning of the house, where all main functional rooms can see these rain trees. The rain trees also serve as connective elements among an irrigation canal at the front, the house in the middle and Doi Suthep mountain at the back of the site. They also function as filters for visibility, dust, strong sunlight, and heat from the outside front space where the house faces to.

The requirement for a vast green space that corresponds to the gigantic scale of the rain trees is procured by arranging a garage on the edge of a wide-open side of the land plot, while a track to the garage is paved with grass blocks to provide a green space to the whole front area. The main functions on both floors of the house are arranged to face to these big trees, so dwellers can see the rain trees in different level from the trunk to the treetop following their moving from one space to another space.

Interior spaces are arranged for convenient access in real use by making the fluid sequence of spaces from the outside to the inside, which then after reached the main functional spaces on the ground floor, a living room, and on the upper floor, bedrooms, will open to the outside again. Large opening of doors and windows also provide well ventilation to these fluid spaces, while declining slope of the garden from the house to the front edge makes the house look statelier and get better air. By these technics of spatial arrangement, garden, trees and house became one in term of spatial and visual linkages, in both horizontal and vertical direction.

The Rain Tree House thus is a garden pavilion where the front green space flows horizontally through its interior to the rear garden, and vertically to the top floor, far further to Doi Suthep mountain away.