Project Name: On Cloud9 HDY Cafe

Location: Tambon Hat Yai, Songkhla Province, Thailand

Design Team: Sitti Architects and Design

Floor Area: 200 m²

Year of Completion: 2026

Photography: Rungkit Charoenwat

Design Features: Thai studio Sitti Architects and Design has completed a healthy café and restaurant in Hat Yai that distils the owner’s brief — “simple yet truly outstanding” — into a striking architectural statement of curved concrete and open sky. Situated within a densely populated residential neighbourhood in southern Thailand, the 200-square-metre project was completed in 2026, deploying a bold circular plan to create an inward-looking sanctuary.

The enclosing ring of reinforced concrete shields the interior from surrounding urban noise, replacing external chaos with a serene central void that draws the eye upward toward the open sky above. The design is rooted in a dialogue between basic geometric forms — triangles, squares, and circles — and the textures of the natural world. This conceptual framework is most tangibly expressed through the building’s sweeping curved walls, which demanded exceptional precision during construction.

Material restraint is central to the project’s success. Light-toned surface finishes render the reinforced concrete and steel structure remarkably weightless, allowing the building to dissolve softly into the ever-changing sky. Custom wall textures draw further from nature: intricate lines referencing tree bark and the clean horizontal sweep of the horizon animate the minimalist surfaces with a quiet, organic rhythm.

The result is a wellness destination that blurs the boundary between inside and out. Generous voids and considered spatial transitions ensure that natural light, airflow, and the surrounding landscape remain constant presences within the interior, making the café feel less like a building and more like a curated clearing in the natural world.

Design Team: SITTI Architects and Design is a boutique architecture and design practice based in Hat Yai, southern Thailand. Founded and led by principal architect Sittikorn Suwannarat, the studio operates at the intersection of contemporary spatial design and the tropical vernacular of the Songkhla region, bringing a rigorous formal sensibility to commercial, hospitality, and residential commissions.

Under Suwannarat’s design leadership, the practice has established a coherent body of work distinguished by its restrained material palette, precise geometric composition, and a sustained engagement with natural light and the outdoor environment. The studio’s methodology prioritises contextual response: each project is conceived as an architectural intervention calibrated to its specific site conditions, neighbourhood density, and programmatic brief, resulting in spaces that are simultaneously structurally disciplined and atmospherically generous.

SITTI Architects and Design has earned growing recognition within the Thai architecture community for its ability to synthesise modernist spatial thinking with the climatic and cultural specificities of southern Thailand. The practice’s hospitality portfolio, in particular, reflects a distinctive approach to the public realm: interiors and exteriors are treated as a continuous spatial field, with porous threshold conditions, articulated volumes, and carefully considered materiality working in concert to create environments that are architecturally precise yet deeply inhabitable.