The front facade of the
Little Shelter Hotel is
clad in bespoke shingles
cut from teng wood
offcuts and translucent
polycarbonate sheets.THAILAND’S LITTLE SHELTER HOTEL
IS A LUMINOUS BEACON DESIGNED
TO ATTRACT ADVENTURE-SEEKERS
WORDS _Erin Donnelly
PHOTOGRAPHS _W Workspace Company Limited
Light
Sleeper
Detail _Little Shelter Hotel _Chiang Mai, Thailand _Department of Architecture Co.
032 _ _SEPT 2019
On the outskirts of Chiang Mai, in mountainous
northern Thailand, the wooden architecture of the
Old City transitions quietly into shingled pitched-roof
houses thanks to a common material palette.
Tasked with inserting the contemporary Little
Shelter Hotel into this verdant landscape, Bangkok
firm Department of Architecture Co. envisioned
something that was unconventional, yet deeply
rooted in tradition. Likening the ubiquitous wooden
shingles to fish scales, the firm created a shimmer-
ing structure perched on a peaceful stretch of the
Ping River and clad in translucent shingles.
Riffing on the hipped roofs common to the area,
the architects devised an asymmetrical form clad
in wood shingles on the top and sides. On the road-
facing facade, the wood pieces gradually blend
out, giving way to luminous polycarbonate. The
translucent shingles are custom made – cut from
large sheets of the material – and the wood shingles
are also bespoke: With sustainability and budget
in mind, the team sourced teng wood offcuts from
a local timber member manufacturer and cut the
shingles from these. “We determined the size of
shingle based on the available timber, with consid-
eration of market-size polycarbonate sheets, in
order to use the materials with minimum waste,”
says co-principal Amata Luphaiboon.
Finding 10 by 35 centimetres to be the optimal
dimensions for both modules, the architects then
faced the challenge of mounting them. “We first
tried conventional wood studs and steel screws,
but it looked awful,” says Luphaiboon. “It was all seen
from either side of the polycarbonate plane, so we
decided we needed transparent fixing members.”
A standard polycarbonate cap, typically used to
join panels of roofing sheet, was adapted to provide
horizontal support for the shingles. And, after failing to
locally source transparent screws of an appropriate
size, the architects turned to the Internet: “We ordered
them through Alibaba, the Chinese online shopping
website,” Luphaiboon says.
During the day, the hotel glitters in the sun with a
lustre that seems to move in tandem with the breeze in
the surrounding trees. The inside is flooded with soft
natural light, lending an indoor–outdoor feel to the 14
guest rooms, which overlook the river. At night, Little
Shelter emits a gentle glow that beckons through the
lush greenery, welcoming travellers who have left the
beaten path in search of something a little different.
departmentofarchitecture.co.th