Spanish Bangkok Design Week

Some insights of the Spanish Bangkok Design Week (Nov-24) where the unexpected team formed by father Reynaldo, Tra Kamun and me had chance to publicly present the singular circumstances involving the creation of the Oratory of St Xavier in Umphang. Good days in Chinatown, organized by Myriam Rueda and Mesa312.

Visit us at the Bangkok Spanish Design Week ’24

The first edition of the long-awaited Bangkok Spanish Design Week took place near Yaowarat in Bangkok on 21-24 November. The show was curated and organized by Myriam Rueda and Studio Momo. The Oratory of St Xavier in Umphang was featured next to the architecture sketches and models that helped conceiving it, together with an all-starts …

Venturing into Meditative Drawing

Inspired by the meditation drawings by Möebius. Seeking a state of mindfullness, forgetting about everyday’s petty issues and letting the hand flow. Same as other skills like road driving, once you have fully internalized the mechanics, while keeping the see-forward ability that allows you to build a composition, the process goes almost automatically. The resulting …

Framing my dip pen drawings

During last years I have accumulated dozens of dip pen drawings that I would like to exhibit someday —some of them are quite nice, to be honest— and I though about getting some picture frames and start experimenting with displays. However, nearly all frames I’ve seen in malls and photo shops of Thailand are beyond …

“The Thai Shophouse: a Bastard Typology” at ACE Journal

The “hongthaew”, the Siamese shophouse, is the most iconic architecture typology of modern Thailand. It is an extremely versatile and robust design that has survived two hundred years of urban transformations. The “hongthaew” is a mixed-breed dog, an architectural nomad, a born survivor that originated in South China and was travelled to Siam via British …

St Xavier´s featured by ASA journal

“Holy Crab”! It is very rewarding to see St Xavier’s Church being featured in a twelve pages article by the Association of Siamese Architects under Royal Patronage (‘ASA’, Thailand’s RIBA equivalent) written by Nathanich Chaidee. The article, illustrated by the photographs Panoramic Studio, highlights the project’s blend of Karen carpentry skills and contemporary design as …

Oratory of St Xavier in Umphang

Umphang district: a misty frontier Umphang is Thailand’s most remote district; it is accessible only by the scenic but tortuous Route 1090. The area is so difficult to reach that it remain as a stronghold of Thailand’s communist insurgence until the 1980’s. Its most notable touristic attraction, the Thi Lo Su Waterfalls, was ignored by …