ASA JOURNAL Vol.2 | 2018

Some rules of Vernacular Design
from Case Study of Tai Yai Vernacular Houses
Associate Professor Rawiwan Oranratmanee, Ph.D.
Faculty of Architecture, Chiang Mai University / rawiwan.o@cmu.ac.th
Introduction
Vernacular Architecture is essentially a built structure designed and constructed to correspond with the surrounding
environmental, economic, social, cultural and political context. The know-how from vernacular architecture forms part of a body
of vernacular wisdom that is gradually accumulated, polished and refined through the changing course of time and conditions.
The intrinsic value of vernacular wisdom is the fact that it has been tried and applied in the everyday life context through
generations. It evolves through varying contexts and social conditions, strengthened through hands-on learning and the process
of trial and error, until the most suitable characteristic and technology are attained. Professor Paul Oliver, an expert on the World’s
vernacular architecture said that a valuable lesson of vernacular architecture is its ability to adapt itself to different environmental
contexts and changes. The nature of change is never been linear, but rather it circulates. If we are able to learn to connect and
incorporate local wisdoms to the knowledge developed and provided by formal educational and professional institutions, we will
be able to formulate an integrated body of knowledge to achieve new architectural and environmental solutions through
vernacular design (Oliver, 2005). Amos Rapoport, Professor of Environmental Behavior Studies, once suggested that the role of
academics in the vernacular approach to design is to extract the usable knowledge while the role of designers is to apply that
knowledge to the contemporary context and time ((Rapoport, 2006). See Image 1.
Associate Professor Wiwat Taemeeyaphan (1986)
proposed two approaches to vernacular architecture studies.
The first one is put forward by the academics whose objective
is to attain greater understanding in vernacular architecture as
a fundamental knowledge. The second approach related to the
architects’ pursuit of knowledge or standards that can be applied
to one’s individual design direction and creativity. Professor
Onsiri Panin (2008) cited that the study of vernacular architecture
relies on the local wisdoms obtained through fieldwork
as the main source of empirical knowledge. The significant
problem, however, is that the local wisdoms related to vernacular
architecture are often in the form of tacit knowledge that has
been transmitted verbally in combination with the use of
techniques that have been passed on and observed through
actual practices. In addition, there are concepts, rules and
processes in the making of vernacular architecture in real-life
context that are not consistent with the conventions and
methodology provided by the modern educational system and
professional practice. Such differences become the limitation
for designers and architects to access vernacular wisdoms and
as a result requires them to study, research and explore with
great dedication and effort to understand specific, and
sometimes, different ways of thinking derived from and hidden
in a society or a culture.
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วารสารสถาปัตยกรรมของสมาคมสถาปนิกสยาม
ในพระบรมราชูปถัมภ์ Issue 02 / 2018
Academic Journal of The Association of Siamese Architects
under the Royal Patronage
Case Study
This article presents the synthesis of the fieldwork
studies of Tai Yai Vernacular Architecture (Rawiwan Oranratnamee
and Chaowalit Saicharoent, 2014: Rawiwan Oranratmanee,
2015). The studies focus on vernacular architectures of
Tai Yai, a large and long-existing ethnic group with an expansive
area of settlement in upper Southeast Asia, Southern China and
Northeastern India. The continuing studies have been conducted
from 2011 to present with three fieldworks done outside of
Thailand in Tai Yai’s settlement in India (the area around the
basin of Brahmaputra river in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh),
Myanmar (Shan State) and China (Dehong Autonomous
Prefecture). The article features some of the lessons acquired
from the fieldworks carried out in Myanmar and India from the
rules in orientation, composition, size, and scale including
structural and construction systems, which can be applied to
modern architectural design.
1. Orientation
The orientation of Tai Yai houses is done in reference to
the environmental and climatic conditions of the settlement,
which is often a river valley that rests along the north-south
axis. Tai people’s belief in the orientation of their domestic
environment follows the form of the land that they live in.
To be more specific, the orientation of a Tai Yai house is in
parallel with the mountain ridge and the river. With north-south
orientation of the ridges and rivers in most of Tai Yai’s settlements
in the northern part of the region, the Tai Yai people design and
build their homes to be in the corresponding direction. The
veranda is situated towards the south direction (the south is
referred to as hon chan) with the sleeping quarters located
towards the north (hon hong). 1 The sacred space is where the
sacred pole (Phii pole or Mongkhol pole or Kwan pole) and the
Buddha shrine (keng phra) are situated. Inhabitants sleep with
their head facing east (wan ok) while the kitchen is situated
towards west (wan tok). The wood flooring is also derived from
the concept of ‘eat at the tip, sleep at the root’, in which the
placement of the wooden panels is done with top part used as
the sleeping quarter and the bottom part or the root as the house’s
kitchen area. 2 The orientation can be explained in the illustration
in Image 2.
2. House composition : Clustered house
of Tai Yai
Tai Yai’s clustered house consists of different domestic
structures, each derived from the inhabitants’ daily way of life
as shown in the illustration of the house isometric projection
(Image 3). The image illustrates a single house located on an
approximately 200 square wa land plot, with a fence made of
bamboo or clay bricks created to loosely indicate the boundary.
The house’s initial point of access is the fence, which is connected
to khong huen or khuang ruen. This particular area is an open
space that separates the house from the outside public space. 3
Adjacent to khuang ruen is the main house where the inhabitants
live and other additional built structures such as a granary, a
storage area, animal, a pond, kitchen and the walkway, which
connects to other houses within the same cluster.
3. Architectural compositions of the
main house
The main house or ‘hern long’ has its own specific
design and spatial rules. The compositions are identified
through spatial hierarchy from public to semi-public and
private spaces. Such division is achieved with the difference
of activities, floor level, and some spatial marks. Local Tai Yai
builders as well as inhabitants from the fieldworks explain the
spatial rule of this particular built structure as the “three-room
house” (Image 4), following three principal compositions: the
front, the middle and the rear, corresponding with the inhabitants’
daily routine - eating, living and sleeping. The front part
comprises of the veranda for the family’s daily activities and
guest reception. The middle part, separated from the front part
by a wooden wall, is a main hall used for the family’s living
area during nighttime and for overnight guests to sleep. It also
accommodates the Buddha shrine and the hearth, if it is designed
to be incorporated inside the main house. The rear part
is the most enclosed private space used for the family’s sleeping
areas. The family members in different sub-families usually
sleep in separated mosquito nets. One family simply occupies
one span between the two poles. Inside the rear part,
or else, the middle part, we can find the sacred pole, as already
mentioned.
4. Size and proportion
The specification of sizes and proportions of Tai Yai
houses corresponds with the human scale with ‘kueb’, ‘sok’ and
‘wa’ as the fundamental scaling units as shown in Image 5. With
the number of family members being the key indicator, the
rooms are often constructed in odd numbers while the poles
are conventionally in even numbers. The most common standard
sizes are the 3-room and 5-room program with 12 and 15 poles,
respectively. The measurement reveals that each span’s approximate
range is a little over 2 meters. 4 The span between the poles
of the end side is longer with the approximate length of a little
over 3 meters. The width of the standard three-room house
ranges between 5 to 6 meters with the length that ranges between
6 and 8 meters. To expand the functional space to a 4-5 room
house, additional spans are incorporated to the house’s length
with the range of the end side increased, following the overall
maximum width-length proportion of 1:2 while the most
common proportion is 1:1.5.
The standard house is a basic single residential structure
that accommodates an extended family with members from two
to three generations. Newly married members with no kids often
build a 3-room, 8-pole house using bamboo and timber before
the size of the family expands in the future. Nonetheless, the
most common structure is the double-gable house, which is
1
From the study done by Renoo Wichasin (1995), the existing documents and oral history regarding the use of Tai words in various settlements find the use of the term ‘hon hong’ and ‘hon chan’ to refer to
the north and south directions, respectively.
2
The notion also appears in the writings about Southeast Asian vernacular architecture by Waterson (2009) and Oranratmanee (2013).
3
Kuang and court serve as a transition space from public to the private space. Similar convention can be found with the urban planning where a town often has ‘Khuang Mueng), which is basically an open,
multifunctional space that accommodates cultural and social gathering in an urban scale. For a vernacular house and village, Khuang Ruen and Khuang Bann function similarly to Khuang Mueng but at a
residential and communal scale.
4
This particular range is suitable with the size of the sleeping mat and mosquito net for one small family of parents and young children.