A Bangkok commission usually starts inside a fixed shell. It might be a condominium tower on Sukhumvit, in Sathorn or along the river, with its columns, wet zones and window wall already decided, or a shophouse that runs narrow and deep from the street and lost its light several renovations ago. The job is to make that given space cooler, calmer and particular to the people who use it, in a city that is hot every month of the year.
NYKS takes on a Bangkok project as a whole from its studio in Jaipur. We lead the design, specify and commission the craft in India, come to site when the big decisions are made, and bring on the licensed Thai professionals and contractors who sign and build, then coordinate and inspect their work. What draws us is the conversation between two craft cultures that already understand each other: Thai lacquer and glass mosaic beside Rajasthani lime plaster, mirror work and brass.
All of our completed work is in Jaipur and Udaipur, none of it in Bangkok, and it is fairer to judge us on that than on a promise. These three projects answer the questions a Bangkok client tends to ask: how a home becomes specific inside an ordinary shell, how an old building is brought back into use, and how craft made in India arrives finished and intact.
Bangkok is an hour and a half ahead of Jaipur, so our studio day covers most of the Thai working day. Delhi has several nonstop flights to Bangkok a day, of around four and a half hours. Site is close enough to reach when it matters, and we plan visits around the moments that decide the result.
The people who draw the room are the people you speak to until it is finished; more on the way the studio is set up.
Thailand treats architecture as a controlled profession. Under the Architect Act B.E. 2543 (2000), only people licensed by the Architect Council of Thailand may practise it, and interior architecture is one of the Council’s four fields. Architectural and engineering services also appear on List Three of the Foreign Business Act B.E. 2542 (1999), which foreign businesses may not provide without a licence. So the controlled part of the work is carried by a licensed Thai professional on the team, and a Thai contractor builds; NYKS leads the design, commissions the craft and stays accountable for the rooms you end up with.
In a condominium, the juristic person’s regulations govern your unit. Most Bangkok buildings want drawings approved before work starts, and set working hours (usually weekday daytime), approved contractors, lift bookings and a refundable deposit. Changes that affect the common property or the building’s external appearance need a co-owners’ resolution under the Condominium Act, so a new window or an outdoor unit on the facade is a longer conversation than a new kitchen.
In a shophouse, the Building Control Act applies. Altering a load-bearing wall, a beam or a floor counts as a modification and needs a permit, or a formal notification naming licensed architects and engineers. We agree that route before we promise a plan.
Daytime highs sit between 32 and 36°C through the year, and the rainy season runs from mid-May to mid-October, with the heaviest rain in September and October. Most condominiums are sealed and cooled around the clock; most shophouses are not. They are two climates, and we specify for each.
In a condominium the risk is condensation where cooled air meets a warm surface: behind wardrobes on outside walls, around ducts, at the glass line. We keep joinery off cold walls, ventilate behind it, and choose solid timber and rattan over boards that swell. A shophouse has to breathe instead: lime plaster rather than sealed paint, screens that open front and back, a light well where the structure allows.
Thai craft has a deep vocabulary of its own: lacquer from the rak tree, gilded or painted; mother-of-pearl inlay; coloured glass mosaic on temple buildings. Rajasthani thikri works on the same instinct as that mosaic, small pieces of mirror set by hand into lime, and hand-forged brass and carved stone jaali sit easily beside lacquered timber. We would rather you commissioned a lacquer panel from a Thai workshop and a thikri ceiling from Jaipur than bought either tradition as reproduction.
Some crafts travel as finished objects: brass, jaali panels, blue pottery, block-printed and woven textiles, hand-painted cabinetry. Others, like araish plaster, are made in place by the people who practise them, and whether that is possible on a Bangkok site is something we assess project by project.
The office deals with you as owner and with the contractor who does the work, so where the designer sits matters less than a complete submission: drawings that follow the building’s rules, the contractor’s details and schedule, and the deposit. We prepare the drawing set to those rules and the contractor submits it. Build the approval period into the programme before anyone books a start date.
Sea freight from Mundra or Nhava Sheva to Laem Chabang is typically two to three weeks port to port, with customs clearance and delivery on top. Making the pieces takes longer than moving them, so craft is ordered as soon as the design is signed off and the workshop runs in parallel with the site. Thai import duty varies by item and 7% VAT is added; we budget for both from the first estimate.
Often, but it is a structural question before it is a design one. A light well, a removed wall or a new stair alters the structure, so a Thai engineer checks it and the permit route is agreed before the scheme is drawn in detail. Where the structure says no, pale lime finishes, openable screens and cross-ventilation still change how the house feels.
Yes, where the project calls for it. Lacquer, inlay and woven fibre are best commissioned from Thai makers who practise them, and we specify and review that work as closely as our own. Our own artisans work in India, so in Bangkok we find makers with you and see their work before anything is ordered.
NYKS leads the interior design, writes the specification, commissions and ships the craft, coordinates the team and inspects at agreed stages. The work Thai law reserves for licensed professionals — permits, structural sign-off and construction — is done by the Thai architect, engineer and contractor appointed with our help. What we will not take is styling-only work: if we design a room, we stay with it to handover.