Boonserm Premthada

Non-Human Centered Architecture

A lecture by Boonserm Premthada founder of Bangkok Project Studio with a response by Andrés Jaque, Associate Professor of Professional Practice and Director of the Advanced Architectural Design Program at Columbia GSAPP.

There is more than just the human race in this world, but other creatures and nature as well. By caring for our surroundings, we can learn how to be humane, not to put humans at the center of everything, and listen to things around us.

Boonserm Premthada argues that architecture is the physical creation of an atmosphere, serving to heighten our awareness of our natural surroundings. In this lecture, he discusses a variety of his work, considering the manipulation of light, shadow, wind, sound, and smell, alongside the socio-economic and cultural agenda, with many of his projects including programs to improve equality.

Architect and artist, Boonserm Premthada is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Architecture at Chulalongkorn University and Founder of Bangkok Project Studio.

Premthada’s work has won many international awards including, the ar+d Award for Emerging Architecture in 2011. He has also been shortlisted for the Aga Khan Awards for Architecture 2013, the Grand Prize International Brick Architecture 2014, Overall Winner The Plan Awards 2017, Acknowledgement Prize, Regional LafargeHolcim Awards 2017 Asia Pacific, the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2018. and the Royal Academy Dorfman Awards 2019.

He has lectured and exhibited at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), Cite de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine (Paris), the Venice Biennale 2018(Hong Kong), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), University of Tokyo, University of Hong Kong, National University of Singapore, The Bartlett School of Architecture – UCL and several other international universities. This year, his pavilion, ‘The House for Human and The House for Elephants,’ represents Thailand at Biennale Architettura 2021.