Punika Chaiyawat,

Spatial Designer

Existing in Place

My professional practice in spatial design led me to recognize how significantly space can influence its inhabitants, both physically and mentally. This practice-based research explores ways to form a friendship with a place in order to establish awareness of its presence and make the invisible, visible. The project studies my response to the familiar and unfamiliar spaces that shape memory and experience; childhood memories and fresh experiences embody the practice.

In schools, particularly in Thailand, the pedagogy of standardized education tends to provide every child with the same set of knowledge and a similar school layout. I’m interested in how children form unique relationships to space and what we as designers and educators can learn from this.

The project is divided into two parts: The first part took place in this studio, an educational space with which I was not yet familiar. I adopt the idea from a drawing class where close observation and imitation are the basic greetings to an object. In this case, the building is perceived as the object itself, not as a mere background. My drawings draw attention to the overlooked traces, marks, and accidents.

The second part took place at my home in Bangkok, Thailand, where using my own body as a tool, the direct touch to building marks, cracks ,and textures, stirred up my memory as if I was playing with them just yesterday.