Vision for community puts architect on path to Asia industry recognition

Boonserm was handed the Asia-Pacific Acknowledgement Prize at the Fifth LafargeHolcimAwards Asia-Pacific 2017 event in the Malaysian city late on Thursday.
“The award comes as an encouragement for my work and serves as a challenge for me to design more sustainable architecture under the new concept of concern for the needs of the community, the people and the environment, and also for the tourism industry, and such work will help support the community in the long term,” Boonserm said in a interview with The Nation after receiving the industry accolade.
The design concept for the Ban Chang Town Hall is concerned with three objectives. 
The first of these dealt with the use of fly ash, which is waste from cement plants, that is mixed with cement for the construction of the building.
This reduces the overall waste at cement plants. The second objective was based on ethics, with the need for the hall to provide a community benefit. 
Funding for the project came from an electricity development fund that provides social benefits for the communities around the electricity power plants in Ban Chang district. The project’s design was influenced by the need to create more benefits for people in the community, Boonserm said.

Putting people first
The final objective was concerned with stimulating the local economy, by drawing in visitors to the area to view the architectural work. 
This would generate sustainable income for the community, the architect said.
Construction of the project will start in September 2018, with completion expected in 2020. 
The investment value is Bt54 million.
According to the jury announcement at the awards ceremony, the judges “enjoyed the playfulness of the surreal pavilion”. By multiplying the possibilities for cultural activities in the village, it fosters a greater sense of communal engagement, they noted.
 Also commendable, they said, is the activism that has spurred the project. 
Community leaders, and the project’s architect have worked together to gain support for the project from locals and the public sector. This process has embedded the new building within the community before construction begins. Through this participation, it is clear that the imaginative construction will be met with |equally imaginative uses, the jury noted.
The LafargeHolcimAwards Asia Pacific 2017 event was conducted by the LafargeHolcim Foundation. The awards attracted 5,085 projects from entrants in 121 countries to be realised across 131 countries. From 5,085 projects, 1,836 projects passed the formal and quality checks. Of the total, 480 came from Latin America, 471 from the Asia-Pacific, 437 s from Europe, 363 from the Middle East Africa, and 85 projects from North America. 
The awards are separated into two phases. The first is in the regional phase of the competition, with independent juries supported by partner universities of the foundation to evaluate submissions in each of the five regions: Europe, North America, Latin America, Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific. The second phase is the global phase, with the 15 projects that received gold, silver or bronze prizes in the regions automatically qualifying for the Global Awards.
The awards were presented in three categories, with gold, silver and bronze prizes. 
The first category is LafargeHolcimAwards. The scond category is Acknowledgement Prize, and the third one is New Generation Prize, which is for architects aged 30 and under. Boonserm won his Acknowledge-ment Prize in the second category, in which four winners were announced, including the Thai architect for |the design of the Ban Chang Town Hall.