Do you have any idea what these mud-brick domes are? They look as if they’re floating on a pond somewhere in Africa. They’re actually a lot closer to Bangkok than you’d think. Try Hua Hin. And they’re not rustic dwellings, they’re spa treatment pavilions for which The Earth Spa at the Evason Hideaways Hua Hin received a Gold Prize in the Hotel Category at the 2005 Asia Pacific Interior Design Awards (APIDA) in Hong Kong. The spa’s originality, aesthetics and environmental awareness harmonize local wisdom and modern spa concept. We got to meet two main designers from this project, Scott Whittaker and Chanaworn Longsomboon. Scott is a director of dwp cityspace and does not fit this column’s title since he’s been in the architectural design business for over ten years, but Chanaworn does—he’s a fresh graduate from Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Architecture and this was his first project.

Could you describe the overall concept of the Earth Spa?
Scott: The Evason Group really appreciates the environment and sustainable development. They provide a luxury holiday experience, but they don’t want to provide a slick holiday experience. Most of their customers are middle-income workers from Germany and Scandinavia and they want to experience tropical Thailand in a quiet environment. Also, there are a lot of spas in Thailand that are fantastic, but they’re all contemporary Asian style. We saw that some tribespeople in the north of Thailand were building mud-brick walls around some of their rooms. We did some research and the place that builds with mud-brick the most is Africa. We studied African building formation and combined that with Thai traditional mud-brick building from the North.

Chanaworn: The idea for the dome shape came from the African silo that stores wheat and grain.

Scott: The water [underneath] naturally air-conditions the room; cool air comes through holes in the bottom and the shape of the dome sucks the hot air out of the top. A lot of Africans, Arabs, and Europeans once used that form of air conditioning but that tradition is lost now.

Are they made from real mud?
Chanaworn: Yes, it’s a combination of mud and rice. It’s strong because each brick is 18 centimeters thick with concrete in the core. The client introduced us to the mud-brick people so they are the ones who came up with the technology of the mud-brick; we just created the design concept.

But will they dissolve under heavy rain?
Chanaworn: Not much because of the dome shape. It reduces impact of the rain and lets it come through to the pond underneath. The surface does need to be rotated every two years, but just a little bit.

Were you surprised when you won the award in Hong Kong last year?
Scott: Yeah. All the other entries were modern spa designs; this might be the only one that stood out. I think a lot of hospitality architecture might look mostly the same. Good but the same. So people might be looking for something different.