The average size of the largest room

Back in our office, we three architects sat down with the pile of designs from the people. The average size of the largest room was about nine or ten square metres, which could make a neat 3 x 3 metre module. This 3 x 3 metre module could also be conveniently built with and spanned by bamboo, which is cheap and widely available around Chiangmai. So we made hundreds of small cardboard boxes, sized to scale, at 3 x 3 x 2.5 metres, each one representing a single structural unit. These boxes would be the “same structure” and then the “different functions” would be people’s responsibility. Subsequently, using these boxes which we had made as house “building blocks”, the people assembled another set of house models on their grid-paper plots. All the houses were completely different in area, orientation, massing and function. Some houses were small, some were big, some single-floor, some two-floor. The people were all happy with this refinement of their house ideas and were able to explain their house models to the larger group. By this time, we had, more or less, a set of preliminary house designs, based on this 3 x 3 metre module. Next we put the house models all together again, on the big site plan and saw how they all got along with each other. This time we could see much more open space, and could actually imagine living here. Everybody was satisfied with the sense of community that had been created.