16/12/2025
IDEA Team Wins the Outstanding Design Award at the CDAST Awards 2025!
The award-winning project will be showcased at the 9th Architecture & Design Exhibition 2025, taking place at the Bangkok Art & Culture Centre (BACC) on the curved wall located on the 3rd to 5th floors. The exhibition will take place from December 16 to 21, 2025.
Project Title: "The Table: Fill Its Gaps"
Project Type: Teaching Aids – "The Tables"
Designer/Artists: - Khant Zay Paing (IDEA Year 2 student) and
Kaung Hset Wai (IDEA Year 3 student)
Supervisor: Assistant Professor Dr Damnoen Techamai
Studio Coordinator: Raphaël Belhache
Project Owner: IDEA Programme - Integrated Design in Emerging Architecture, a 4-year Bachelor of Science (BSc) International Programme, Faculty of Architecture, Chiang Mai University. *
Date of Publication/Production/Release/Use: Academic Year 2025, from June 19, 2025, to October 30, 2025.
Project background:
The IDEA programme is positioning itself as a school of thought that focuses on experimental design approaches. Its goal is to develop each student's thinking and designing abilities, set under two terms: critical and creative thinking, and to discover emerging ideas and architectural design projects. Each year, we host a pre-college programme for IDEA year one students. The programme aims to welcome new students to the IDEA programme and the faculty, and to introduce students to the design studio. “The table” thus, was created to be part of the pre-college programme.
In this academic year, we designed the pre-college under the theme “The Table”. It is a two-day workshop. We divided our workshop into two parts: Day I - “Thinking” and Day II - “Making”. In these two days, we used the design of the tables as first, a key element for hosting the whole event and second, a key teaching medium for introducing students to the core thinking as well as learning process of our design studio and IDEA programme. The Pro-college is thus divided into two days: Day I - “Thinking”, Key learning: “Interpretation and Translation” and Day II - “Making”, Key learning: “Representation and Presentation”.
Design argument/ Concepts:
"The table"—four legs, usually in a rectangular shape—has been designed to be complete, finished, and resolved. It is built for function, to hold, to divide space, and to support tasks, meals, or meetings. It claims neutrality.
But that neutrality is what makes it absent. The table asks nothing from its users. It disappears into routine. Because in the name of function, that flat table begins to flatten experience. It treats sitting together as a task to be completed, not a moment to be created. Whether circular or rectangular, smooth or raw, the modern table assumes the interaction will take care of itself, that the design's job ends at symmetry, surface, and support.
The design of the tables begins with a refusal of that assumption. What if the table wasn’t finished when it was built? What if its final form depended on the people who gathered around it? At the centre of the table is a gap that rejects the idea of wholeness. The gap is the main character that creates an active zone, something to notice by connecting people around the table.
Chunks of handy table pieces can be added, shifted, and rearranged. There is no “default” that its aesthetic shapes invite the possibility of undiscovered functions that are yet to be dictated. In an age of standardised everything, flat-packed furniture, quick meetings, and predictable dinners, this table slows things down. It introduces the activity of setting up. It makes setting the table not a preparation for interaction, but a table as the participant in the user’s conversation.
The meaningful conversation starts when the table invites the users to fill its gaps – “……”
Final note:
We would like to extend our gratitude to everyone who participated in this two-day workshop - IDEA Y1, especially IDEA Year 2 and Year 3 students. The workshop would not have been a success without their contributions. We also thank our supporting team: Khant Zay Paing (Pie), Khin Cho Myint Aung (JU), May Myat Noe Htun (Elvan), Shwe Sin Aung (Zas) and Kaung Set Wai (Gerard), Monthakarn Jaokasikorn (Ping), Programme Teaching Assistant, and Atcharawadee Janthakrua (Educational Service and Student Development Affairs), Pichitchai Jaipanya (ARCH CMU Fabrication lab), all IDEA tutors and ARCH CMU Staff. The workshop was hosted and designed by Raphaël Belhache and Damnoen Techamai (IDEA Year 1 Tutor). All beautiful photographs and moving images were produced by Khant Zay Paing (Pie) and Damnoen Techamai. Finally, IDEA Programme – Integrated Design in Emerging Architecture Programme and Faculty of Architecture, Chiang Mai University.
Link: https://cdast.org/2025/06/19/9th-architecture-design-exhibition-2025/
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