A suggestion of a roof profile, built with wooden shingles, distinguishes itself from the field of paddy in which it is located. A space to take shelter, surrounded by rice fields and irrigation channels—the location is defined as much by this roof as the 160-year-old rain tree on the site or the sound of trickling water. A water channel cuts through the paved area, shaded by the roof and the tree—a coming together of water, landscape and dwelling. Thailand-based Housescape Design Lab’s The Footprint No. 2 is an experimental design that looks to redefine what shelter means. Taking into consideration the ecological and cultural contexts and histories of Southeast Asia, the intervention by the Chiang Mai-based architects is almost negligible to respect and minimally harm the natural landscape.

As the Thai designers relay in a concept note, “When we first encountered this location, we thought that the topography of the land was already quite interesting. It [embodied] an ecological system that is closely linked with the culture of the Southeast Asian river basin communities almost in its entirety...The foremost idea for designing a new program here [was] to avoid constructing any buildings that rise above the ground level.” Hence, the public space, excavated from the site, is mindful of its ecology, taking inspiration from local ritual practices that act in synergy with natural systems. Particularly, the designers look to ‘เลี้ยงผีฝาย’(Liang Phi Fai), which translates into ‘performing a spirit ritual for a dam’ or ‘offering to the dam spirits’. Imbricating the natural and cultural, Indigenous practices such as these have come to serve as prototypes for thinking with nature and working out processes that are in tandem with ecology, respecting it and caring for it. Through their experimental public architecture, the designers bring such vernacular traditions to the fore.

Apart from the wooden architecture for the roof, the minimal design features stone seating and the element of water through a simple channel dug out in the space. Water, as the architects note, is a vital component for the ritual practices of the local communities sustained by rice cultivation. “We often see the creation of ritual objects made from various materials according to the local landscape through which the irrigation channels flow. Here, we bring these common materials to life, in a place where the sound of water flowing under the force of the earth echoes through this hollow,” they explain. The idea is not only to create a space of shelter within the area but also to think about how this very act of dwelling puts us in relation to the natural world.

To dwell is to be, as Martin Heidegger postulates in Building, Dwelling Thinking. In Heidegger’s conception of the act of dwelling and, by extension, building—that finds resonance in Housescape’s pavilion design—building is meant not only as a gesture of construction but as a means to create connections between ourselves and the world. The act gathers together the natural elements and ourselves in a gesture through dwelling. Heidegger’s conception of dwelling/building is also significant in highlighting care towards the natural. As he writes, “The basic character of dwelling is to spare, to preserve. Mortals dwell in the way they preserve the fourfold [or natural elements] in its essential being, its presencing.”

To dwell, then, means to consider the natural systems we are located within and that we draw upon in our dwelling, to be at peace with the earth. Footprint No. 2 foregrounds this vital interrelationship between the act of dwelling and that of building (in this case, excavating land to create space and digging water channels by which to irrigate the land) as primary to the conceptualisation of the project. As the designers write on the website,

“For 2,567 years, this place has been through ‘forces’ both natural and people who have come and gone. For 2,567 years, we can still hear and feel the sound of the primitive wind. Thousands of years have gone by. Now and here, with the ‘forces of man-made’, we are trying to create something called ‘The Footprint No.2’ (Hoy Tin) again.”

More than just a physical structure, the simple roof design presents a cultural and spiritual continuum with nature. As a space to consider not only our intrinsic connection to the natural world, the project brings attention to how building is an act of gathering, hinged on how humans dwell in the world, whether in consideration of nature or not. It’s vital for buildings to think about these issues, not only for considerations of sustainability but also for a more careful look at construction.

Project Details

Name: The Footprint No.2
Location: Mae Rim, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Client: Rab A Bit
Design Team: Peerapong Promchart, Takdanai Phakdee, Panuwat Donthong, Pimprutti Pruttichote, Puttipong Penthong
Interns: Nicky, Pooh, First, Pran, Zendai, Tonkla, Maprang, Jill Gielen, Gunt
Area: 30sqm
Year of Completion: 2024