MON PALI WORKSHOP, 2018
London, UK
The Mon Pali Workshop sites itself in the firefly forest on the island of Bang Krachao, the “green oasis of Bangkok”, just across from the concrete jungle, which is the central Silom business district. Bang Krachao, originally was where a small population of the Mon tribe, settled in Thailand, however now, only a few are left, with most of them leaving to live in the urban areas of the city.
The Mon were responsible for the spread of Theravada Buddhism in Indochina playing an important part of the religion. However, through generations, their language has started to fade and has been listed under the UNESCO heritage scheme.
The aim of the architecture is to to preserve the language and the traditions of the Mon people through the making and archiving of palm leaf manuscripts, also known as Pali, which the Buddhist scriptures were written on. The building design is driven by not only the traditions and the historical understandings of the Mon tribe, but also through the material exploration and investigation into the limitations of palm leaf as an architectural material as well as the incorporation of the synchronizing flashing language of fireflies.