An 8 storey apartment building converted into a 20 room hotel. The name of the hotel and the design concept were inspired by the client’s steel manufacturing business. Hypothesis used recycled wrought iron screens – characteristically found in Thai houses and low rise buildings – as the primary cladding materials for the existing façade. The screens are composed together to create various layers of opacity, allowing private interior spaces to be concealed while public spaces to be more visible. Vines are planted on the screens. As the building ages, the façade will become more lush and vegetated, contributing greenery to Bangkok’s streetscape.

Inside, the bottom two floors of the building were gutted to create a double height lobby/restaurant. The upper apartments were converted into hotel rooms. The existing structures were left bare and unpainted. The new walls are white. Built in furniture of bedrooms, bathrooms, and lobby were made with metal frames, prefabricated at the owner’s factory and brought to site for installation. The aesthetics of wrought iron also inspired the hotel’s logo and the typeface used in all the hotel’s products.

The choices of using recycled screens and metal-frame furniture (made by owner) greatly helped keeping the construction cost within the tight budget. Ir-on Hotel attempts to represent Thainess with a less common element, and acknowledges the history of the family business through material and form.