New York firm SHoP Architects has designed an irregularly stacked office building for the US Embassy in Bangkok.
The US Department of State’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations selected SHoP to design the New Office Annex (NOX) for the United States Embassy in Thailand.
NOX is designed for Embassy’s 11-acre (4.4-hectare) property in the Bangkok’s Pathum Wan district. The plot was formerly home to a smaller building that served as offices until the mid-1990s.
The lush site is filled with rain trees and storm-water ponds known as ‘klongs’. In response, SHoP’s proposal elevates the office building three feet (0.9 metres) above the floor plain, providing connections to the street level via sloped pathways, stairs and ramps.
SHoP’s building design comprises a tiered glass volumes that are covered in slats as a way to mitigate Bangkok’s hot and humid climate, while also maintaining views to the landscape.
Portions of the lower level jut out in different directions to provide shading to entrances on the lower level.
“The volumes of the lower floors shift away from the core building, extending outward towards the three main Compound Access Control buildings, creating a terracing of the lower half of the building to greet staff and visitors at a human scale,” said SHoP.
On the exterior, these shifted blocks are topped with rooftop gardens.
Inside NOX, the Commons will be distributed through the volumes on the lower level. Offices will be placed on the upper floors.
“The building’s interior programme is guided by its connection to the outside; the common spaces afford views of the lush green landscape and tree canopies, while the upper floors offer unparalleled views of the Bangkok skyline,” said SHoP.
SHoP’S NOX is slated to break ground in early 2020, and to welcome its first occupants in 2024.
The project is among several that SHoP has designed for the US Department of State’s Office of Overseas Building Operations, including a coppery embassy in Tegucigalpa, Honduras and another in Seoul.
SHoP was founded in 1996 in New York by Gregg Pasquarelli, his wife Kimberly Holden, twin brothers Christopher and William Sharples, and William’s wife Coren Sharples.
The firm’s recent completed works include a sprawling complex in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg and bent, copper towers in Manhattan. Its other projects that are underway include world’s skinniest skyscraper in New York and Detroit’s tallest tower.
Rendering is by SHoP.
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