“WAF is the Oscars for architecture!” Phuttipan Aswakool, co-founder of Architectural Studio of Work-Aholic (ASWA), gushes when asked what pushed him and partner Chotiros Techamongklapiwat to join the prestigious competition for the first time.
The team of five submitted the BitWise Headquarters project, a metalclad office building with a gravity-defying cantilever in Samutprakarn, Thailand, which garnered a shortlist under the Completed Buildings: Office Category. The team was ecstatic. “Being shortlisted this year means a lot to my tiny team, as it meant our project has already won recognition by our peers,” says Aswakool.
The design process
A darling of architecture news sites, their playful body of work a fixture in many Pinterest architecture pegboards, ASWA has been quite prolific since its founding in 2013, having penned nearly 50 projects. What is immediately apparent with the studio’s body of work is the way they nimbly shift the architectural vernacular to suit the context. They subscribe to no single style, but their designs clearly reflect a spirit of experimentation as the common thread tying their oeuvre together. “We always immerse ourselves in the context we work in, the identities of our clients, and the eventual end-users of the space. That is how we determine the architectural language that’s the best fit for the project,” Techamongklapiwat adds.
Storytellers
This story is from the Special Issue 2 edition of BluPrint.
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This story is from the Special Issue 2 edition of BluPrint.
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