Building over the shophouses
Bangkok's old commercial streets are rows of shophouses — narrow, deep, and crowned by flat roofs the city has never had a plan for. Along Charoen Krung, the oldest paved road in town, a cooperative of eleven artists bought the air rights over one row and asked for studios.
The studios are steel-framed sawteeth with eaves pulled deep over their glazing, set back from the parapet by the width of a laundry line. In this climate the section works twice: the high side exhausts hot air through operable louvres, the low side drinks indirect light without the heat. From the street you see a serration against the sky — a second horizon rather than a second building.
Eleven rooms, one contract
The cooperative leases the studios at cost to working artists for five-year terms. In return, the ground-floor shopfronts host two open-studio weekends a year. The shophouses got new cores, new waterproofing and a shaded roofscape out of the deal; the artists got rooms that stay workable through the hot season without a compressor in sight.
The district authority asked for reversibility. Every studio can be unbolted and craned off in a day, leaving four pad footings and a better roof than we found.