A Study on Planning of The Thai Traditional House - Focus on Central and Northern Region -

태국 전통주택의 평면적 특성에 대한 고찰 - 중부, 북부 지방을 중심으로 -

The characteristics of traditional Thai houses are post-and-beam structure, lifted floor on pillars, and gabled roof as like as houses in other Southeast Asia countries. However 'charn', connective terrace among each room, is the most unique element in Thai houses which make the area under the 'charn' cool and useful. In Thailand, there are number of housing types caused by historic, social, cultural and geographic factors. This research is focused on comparative study of planning of traditional Thai houses of central and northern region, which have the biggest differences in between. Thai traditional house in central region has symmetrical arrangement on layout and when family members are added, they extend 'charn' and attach another building. While in Northern region, the 'charn' is located not in the center and in the front, and the direction of the main building is perpendicular to the length direction of the veranda. This research has a limitation to be generalized because just two region in Thailand were analyzed and the numbers of case studies were few. Nevertheless, we expect this paper to be a primary guidance to understand Thai traditional houses and we also expect that our research area will cover the all areas in Thailand and finally expand to conclude the commonality and diversity of traditional houses in Southeast Asia in the future.