Escaping every day life
Sala Chaweng is a colour infused and playful 144-room hotel in Samui Island’s Chaweng Beach that is dedicated to providing an escape from every day life. Located on one of the most beautiful beaches in the Gulf of Thailand. It has 2 phases, 52-room for the Beachfront and 82-room for the Roadside. These two areas are divided by a street. Sala Chaweng Beachfront has a single big swimming pool courtyard next to the sea, which is bright and active, whereas Sala Chaweng Roadside is composed of many smaller courtyards, without linear circulation, full of existing trees. The Roadside is shaded, it is more passive, private and quite than the Beachfront.
Each courtyard in the Roadside has a domestic characteristic because Studio Onion felt that it is easier for guests to remember the spaces. The 5 courtyards are named the Outdoor Stairwell, the Outdoor Dining Room, the Outdoor Living Room, the Outdoor Play Room and the Outdoor Bedroom.
Each of space is occupied by household furniture and elements such as single-flight stairs, 12-seat-round table, sofas, swings, beds and giant lamps. All of these domestic furniture are placed in-between existing trees and newly planted greenery. Guests can relax in beds, larger than king-size, shaded by big trees next to the guest swimming pool, having a drink served from the pool bar and feel that, indeed they are indeed on holiday.
We direct our attention to the sky. In every transitions between the courtyards, we open the vertical voids in different shapes, size and materials. Layers of bamboo rectangle voids are placed between the Outdoor Dining Room and the Outdoor Bedroom whereas oval concrete voids in white colour are composed in the transition space between the Outdoor Dining Room and the Outdoor Living Room. The aim is to encourage guests to look up at the sky and to feel the warmth of the sun.
A dominant architectural element of Sala Chaweng Roadside are the white walls. They are long, massive, sometimes concave and sometimes convex. The effects of shadow are what the studio are interested in when they were drawing the walls. It is only in the spa area that they use colours, dark green and pink.
These coloured walls set a new spatial experience to the spa guests. As the sun moves, the light changes its direction, architecture becomes alive. Bathtub off the spa room is placed in the garden surrounded by the dark green walls. The clear glass door brings nature into the treatment room. There is no clear distinction between the interior and the exterior spaces in Sala Chaweng Roadside.
.The studio created a variety of objects composed in the room, such as the lamps, the beach bag, rattan shelves and knotted ropes for pulling the drawers. Each room has a private backyard that guests can relax on a huge circular outdoor bed next to their private swimming pool. The architecture of the interior in Sala Chaweng is the extension of the exterior and vice versa.
