Client
Chang Beer Group
Location
Bamrungrat Road, Chiang Mai
Year
2007
Type
Hostel
About the project
Turning a Kindergarten into a Hostel
We designed Imm Eco Chiang Mai in 2007. The site used to be Baan Dek Kindergarten, and Art Tantayanusorn, one of our architects, was a student there. So when the project reached us, it felt personal. We wanted to get it right.
The owner, Chang Beer Group, asked us to convert the school into a hostel. That meant the first weeks on site were more fun than most surveys. We found the old tables, chairs and blackboards that had been used to teach the children, still sitting in the buildings.
We decided to keep them. Pieces of the kindergarten show up across the hostel, so guests can tell the place had a life before they arrived.
We also designed the landscape, using plants as part of the architecture. The buildings sit among trees and planting, which makes them look less fixed and more lived in.
Once it opened, backpackers took to it quickly. Plenty of travelers want to say they stayed in a hostel that used to be a kindergarten, and the building gives them that story.
Design Philosophy
Keeping the School in the Building
The design works with what was already on the site: the school’s buildings, its furniture and its trees, kept in use wherever we could.
01
The old school
The kindergarten tables, chairs and blackboards were kept and placed through the hostel’s common areas and rooms.
02
The landscape
Trees and planting were added around the buildings so the architecture feels natural and alive.
03
The hostel
The rooms and shared spaces are set up for backpackers and groups on a budget, with dormitory rooms alongside smaller private ones.
