The Standard Hua Hin | Hua Hin, Thailand | SHMA

The Standard Hua Hin, designed to create an adult/family playground involving experiences around wellness and the reinvigorating of senses in an effortless, seductive and playful green environment. Recognizing the demographics of Hua Hin, a popular and convenient get-away for Bangkok and other residents, The Standard is designated to be the new destination for an escape from the chaotic urban area.

Considering the site condition, the area was once full of trees and shrubs scattered around. Our main approach to the design is to preserve the forest and existing tree as much as possible. The intention is not to cut down trees and build buildings in other surrounding areas to preserve nature. As we follow the trees’ location on the site, the buildings are designed and located according to that and in the end creating a variety of organic spaces with small buildings placing around the trees. This allows us to store up to 234 trees, as well as a plan to use local species in every layer of forest floor to restore maritime forest ecology and also the beach forest environment to the project area.

The trees’ preserving process was a challenge that we had to cooperate on with specialists. There are two approaches to the conservation of the original trees in this project, namely keeping the trees in their original locations and encircling the trees to nurse in nurseries and reusing them in new locations in the project area. We also evaluate the trees’ conditions and for those that need special care we also develop tree protections and do check-ups every month.

The project also values a lot on sharing appreciation for the design, lifestyle, food, music, and art. The deliberate, paired-down mid-century feel of the property, furniture that translated from the concept of Hua-Hin nostalgia by gathering the sense of traditions, mood and atmosphere of the area with its playful slant that will offer a mix of calm and interactive activities. The Standard Hua Hin is a place engineered to initiate fun, emotional connections between adults while being inclusive of young children, starting from the main entrance leading down towards the beach at the other end, which concluding into our main concept ‘Journey of the unexpected’

The Journey begins starting from the main entrance of the project, Entrance arrival

Introducing the nature to the guests with a welcoming garden, the highlight of this zone is the existing big 4 rain trees to blend with arrival atmosphere, we created a berm to buffer transitioning from one area to the other and create a sense of discovery as each area offers a unique environment; awaking the senses though visuals and sounds, evoking a variety of emotions as the excitement builds in the journey from the town to the ocean.

Lobby court: The lobby space is an open-air area, allowing people to walk-through the buildings with the seamless transition between buildings and nature full of exotic plants in the area. Following the idea of the site, the area used to be a green forest of Hua Hin. As the journey continues, guests will go through transitions from Lobby to the Room court area.

The room court area is a walk-through forest full of existing trees scattered around. With that, we designed the space to be a one big open space with little pocket room between trees. The overall atmosphere is to keep the playfulness vibe welcoming the guests with sculptures and art, the lawn is also able to host a small event at the entrance area.

The next zone is The Spa Garden. The main highlight of this zone is the biggest exiting rain tree on the site which is surrounded by main buildings, creating a big public court in the middle with the aim to create an open ground area under the shades for people to relax. We decided to place herbs and aromatic plants in this area for more soothing and relaxing experience that could fit the transition from the room court area to the spa garden.

Moving on to The villa area, the buildings are designed to be a small sizes that can be placed around the trees with the intention to preserve the existing trees on the site. Resulting in organic planning style following the nature.

A pool area is placed next to the villa continuing the flexible experience with a little more fun. The theme of the pool area is to have a big slope in the middle creating a smooth transition from the project to the sea. The overall concept of this area is to create a flexible play space suitable for adults combining the nature and fun experience together.