Designers Boonserm Premthada

Architect and artist, Boonserm Premthada is Dean’s Visiting Assistant Professor at Columbia university, GSAPP and Visiting Assis tant Professor at The University of Hong Kong, and Founder of Bangkok Project Studio. In his practice, Premthada is known for prioritizing the use of natural materials, low-tech construction methods, as well as collaborations with local craftspeople.

His studio has completed a number of projects across its home country, including Elephant Museum, a building complex made of clay bricks which hopes to educate visitors about the close connection the animal has with the people of northeast Thailand. In addition, it’s built to provide a source of stable income for the Kuy people - an ethnic group in Thailand’s Tha Tum district - as well as for taking care of the region’s elephants. In 2021, Premthada was invited to represent Thailand at the Venice Architecture Biennale with a project exploring what architecture can learn from this relationship between elephants and the Kuy people.

Proving how animal waste can be upcycled in a way that fosters cultural and economic values for local communities, the architect has also created brick prototypes made from elephant dung. The bricks have been developed in collaboration with ‘mahouts’ (elephant riders) and local workers in the Kiu Village of Ban Ta Klang, Thailand, a region known for its domesticated elephants — and thus, its abundance of dung along the roads. Bangkok Project Studio has also used this experimental material to build an actual functioning structure: the Elephant Theater. Part of the Biennale Architecture and Landscape of Versailles 2022, the pavilion is made of stacked elephant dung bricks, which create large, circular columns enclosing a secret garden, open to the sky sunlight.

Boonserm Premthada’s interest in supporting local communities is also evident in his communityfocused ‘Artisans Ayutthaya: the Woman Restaurant’. This project is located in a village outside the ancient city of Ayutthaya, which, curiously, is inhabited mainly by unmarried or widowed women. Aged between 55 and 94, these women dedicate their days to preparing food that can be sold to support a nearby temple in need of repair. Using overlooked and repurposed materials, Premthada built the restaurant for these women, who he names ‘the breathing scriptures' for their determination to preserve the cuisine and craft of Ayutthaya. The characterful construction approach, combined with a design that seeks to empower the local community, demonstrates exactly why Bangkok Project Studio is the deserved recipient of THE DESIGN PRIZE for SOCIAL IMPACT.