Home tour: a modern courtyard house in Bangkok designed for four generations

Before construction, the architectural team surveyed the site and found that the 800-square-metre plot was surrounded by a diverse context. The front faced a kindergarten, bringing noise and traffic chaos during school drop-off and pick-up hours. At the time, the rear bordered an orchid nursery, posing risks from fertiliser and fungicide use, alongside nearby vacant plots. These were the initial challenges the design team had to analyse to find the optimal solution.

"When building a house, we try to research the data that affects their living conditions as much as possible, including somewhat forecasting how they might impact their neighbours once they move in," says Surat.

"Because besides wanting good neighbours, we must also be good neighbours to them. This is quite important, and it has to be a house where living is both physically and mentally comfortable. There are just these two keywords. The first is how to make the residents physically comfortable. Through research, identifying issues, direction, sun, wind, rain, pollution, and disturbances, we enable people to live comfortably using Passive Design principles."

Beyond the Passive Design principles used to tackle the hot and humid climate, wind direction, and internal ventilation, the architect also looked deeper into solving intra-family relationship dynamics.

"What I truly focus on is how to make people live 'mentally comfortably'. This is even harder. It's about people—10 people in 10 houses are never the same. The scale of the family unit significantly impacts space creation. Therefore, the goal was to figure out how this house could resolve family issues. The real key was allocating privacy for the residents—how to make it flexible, how it answers the brief, and how to establish house rules for shared living before finalising the architectural plans."

To create privacy and meet differing needs, building a house where everyone feels mentally at ease required data to rationally allocate space. The design team went as far as calculating how the 80-decibel afternoon noise from the kindergarten opposite would echo and affect each part of the house. This data was used to zone areas in alignment with each member's behaviour, from waking up to going to bed, resulting in a U-shaped building space that functions like two merged houses.

For the grandmother, who usually wakes up early, the bedroom is located in the front zone on the ground floor of the first building for ease of access, incorporating ramps to prepare for future wheelchair use. This side of the house belongs to the elderly and the parents, radiating warmth through bright, white, homely spaces that welcome the morning sun. The functions flow seamlessly, starting from the ground floor bedroom zone, maid's room, and service room, before extending into an open-plan common room that connects the dining area and living room. It boasts a striking double-volume ceiling that draws the eye up to the fully glazed fitness room on the first floor. This reflects how this side of the house is thoughtfully designed with comprehensive functions that precisely match the adult lifestyle.

Meanwhile, the other side of the house—the domain of the younger generations—conveys a cooler, more modern character with darker tones. The ground floor is packed with functions for a modern family, including a pantry zone, a pool table, and a living room.

What makes this side interesting is that the building is about two-and-a-half to three storeys high, but the architects concealed complex level changes and internal volumes. This corresponds with the form of the sloping roof that gradually descends. To manage the light and wind coming from the southwest, windows are positioned below eye level to welcome cool breezes and reveal the greenery outside, while simultaneously blocking the heat of the afternoon sun and preventing visual disturbances from the outside.

Walking up the stairwell enclosed by tall, clear glass spanning its length, this area acts as an observation deck for the homeowners to keep an eye on the elderly wing, even from across the property. Moving up to the first-floor landing leads to the bedrooms of the two grandchildren. Continuing to the very end of the stairs reveals the younger sister’s bedroom, facing the front of the house. Stepping up to the second floor reveals a private oasis with a small foyer and a welcoming pantry, before splitting into a bathroom and laundry area on the right, which faces the western sun. This allows laundry to be washed and dried in one place without lugging baskets up and down, and allows for pre-bedtime showers without disturbing anyone.

On the left is the high-ceilinged master bedroom, serving as the ultimate conclusion to data-driven problem-solving. The family member who manages the business late into the night and wakes up late is assigned the highest and deepest room in the house to escape the noise from the school across the street. The room comfortably welcomes the morning light, featuring a protruding wooden balcony—perfect for lounging, enjoying the breeze, and sipping a relaxing beer on days off.

On the ground floor, the space between the two buildings is linked by a courtyard and a swimming pool, which was not designed for serious swimming workouts, but rather intended as a poolside hangout area with a shallow zone for dipping feet on hot days. Designing the western building to be taller in certain parts also casts shade over the courtyard from the afternoon into the evening—the time when the family spends the most time outdoors. This is paired with the clever use of plants to fill the space. Weeping willows were chosen for their swaying nature; when met with light and wind, the shadows of the leaves inherently soften the building's appearance.

Additionally, large-leaved Alexandrian laurels act as a natural buffer, providing a visual screen from the housing estate behind. This maintains privacy while still allowing pleasant breezes to circulate through the property—a perfect example of using landscaping to resolve design issues seamlessly.

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Moving up to the first floor, the walkway structure was designed to play with a circulation concept resembling a paradox or a maze, adding a playful continuity to the space. This walkway connecting the two houses is adorned with the homeowner’s favourite artworks. The wooden-box-like structure features long wooden windows that can be opened to let in natural breezes, allowing everyone to easily visit one another or comfortably check on the elders without disrupting each other's rhythms of life.

"The function of the courtyard, the walkway, and the central void is to figure out how this seemingly large 800-square-metre space can still have an axis that connects people exactly when they want to be connected," the architect explains the significance of the central space and the connecting walkway that threads the private areas of both sides together to meet in the middle. This is the very origin of the name 'Baan Banjob'.

The aesthetics of the house are also expressed through the pairing of materials that respect nature. The architects opted for grey terracotta bricks for the exterior façade to reduce the bulkiness of the large building, expressing humility and harmonising with the local context. It also helps reduce light reflection, keeping it friendly to the surrounding neighbours.

As for the timber details, there is a blend of high-density wood-plastic composite, meticulously hung on a steel frame for weather resistance. This contrasts with the external ceilings and floors, where genuine wood, such as Tabak, is used in areas that come into physical contact with the residents, softening the feel of the space. This echoes the clean, gallery-style white walls that provide open spaces for displaying the homeowner's favourite artworks.

Although the external context may change unpredictably over time—for instance, the backyard area that was once an orchid nursery has now become a housing estate—the thoughtfully conceived architecture is always ready to embrace adaptation alongside a fluid lifestyle.

"We want to talk about Human Dimensions because we truly believe that architecture can shape the people within that building and can solve everything that happens inside it, even interpersonal problems," the architect concludes.

'Baan Banjob' does not merely gather people of different ages under one roof; it gradually designs the distance to become closeness, transforming the generational gap into a space where everyone can converge, without having to abandon the rhythm of their own lives.

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