Classrooms

Zabb e Lee started as a traditional Thai cooking school in the old town of Chiang Mai. When business was growing, the owners, a young local couple, expanded to a satellite site in the middle of the rice fields on the outskirts of Chiang Mai. To keep the natural feeling they asked Chiangmai Life Architects to design and build the cooking class pavilion, called “sala” in Thai, in bamboo. Its charm, functionality, and Instagrammability proved to be a huge success with clients so the owners commissioned a second one, the Double Dome, and then a third one.

The quality of the site is due to its location in the heart of a planted island. The buildings of the establishment are pavilions between which users can move freely. The poetry of this place is enhanced by beautiful trees that form axes or points of interest. However, the transition between the layout in the heart of the block and the street is currently poorly resolved. This project constitutes a solution that reconciles the opening to the heart of the school with the definition of a boundary on the street. The administrative building and the annexed premises are also an opportunity to offer a new image of the Athénée Royal Jules Destrée and to make the site safer.

The existing building is located on the island of Pescaia, along the valley floor of the Adda river between the towns of Traona and Cosio Valtellino in the Province of Sondrio. The project involves the transformation and expansion of the rural building originally used as a stable and barn into an educational classroom along the Valtellina path: a cycle-pedestrian itinerary that winds along the entire valley.

In our Design-Build Studio / Spring 2021, we understood improvisation as the erratic and collaborative process that a group of two professors, thirty-three students, and a diverse team of consultants carried out to make the “Orange 1” project a reality.

Located at the University of Victoria on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, this building was designed to accommodate the Indigenous Graduate Student Union. The building is comprised of classrooms, offices, study spaces, ceremonial spaces, and lounges for elders and students.

The woodland classroom is located at the edge of the woods by an outdoor gathering space shared by a cluster of other small museum buildings. The program is two separate classrooms joined by a large roof. The space between the classrooms is a breezeway that frames views of the woods. The roof is punctured by nine skylights that flood spaces beneath with natural light.