Project Name: Cafe. MADA in the Little Garden

Location: Chiang Rai, Thailand

Design Team: BodinChapa Architects

Total Floor Area: 254 m²

Completion: 2025

Photography: shootative / Witsawarut Kekina

Design Features:

Project — BodinChapa Architects has transformed a lychee orchard in Chiang Rai, Thailand, into a serene café retreat where dark toned architecture thoughtfully frames the natural landscape. Cafe MADA in the Little Garden demonstrates how contemporary design can integrate harmoniously with agricultural settings while creating spaces for contemplation and connection. The 254 square metre project's most distinctive feature is its J shaped configuration, which emerged from careful observation of the orchard's grid pattern. Rather than imposing an arbitrary form, the architects worked with the existing tree rows to create a fluid spatial sequence that maximizes sightlines across both axes of the site. This curving geometry links interior and exterior spaces in a continuous visual narrative, allowing visitors to experience the landscape from multiple perspectives.

Materiality plays a central role in the café's atmospheric quality. The architects selected a palette of black toned materials including brick, charred timber, and textured wall surfaces to create a structure that recedes into the dappled shadows of the lychee canopy. The use of locally sourced Thai timber, carefully charred to achieve a charcoal finish, adds tactile richness while enhancing the wood's natural grain. This dark exterior allows the surrounding greenery to emerge as the primary visual focus, creating a comfortable contrast that highlights the orchard's sculptural tree trunks. The design employs an inverted J shaped brick fence to define an intimate inner garden, concealing internal activities while reinforcing the sense of tranquility. Vertical wooden columns in the reception area create rhythmic connections between interior architecture and exterior tree trunks, guiding visitors seamlessly from entrance to café.

The project's defining feature is its orchestrated material exploration strategy and spatial experiential value. By positioning the building as a visual anchor within the existing agricultural grid, BodinChapa Architects has created a sanctuary that balances commercial function with meditative qualities, offering an escape from everyday chaos within a working landscape. The building's dark façade harmonizes with the natural shadows of the lychee trees, creating a visually comfortable contrast that allows the surrounding environment to take center stage. The strategic combination of timber, brick, and textured surfaces reinforces the spatial tactile quality, creating a warm yet contemplative atmosphere within a functional café environment. The J shaped configuration is not merely a formal innovation but a thoughtful response to existing site conditions, demonstrating how contemporary architecture can create new spatial experiences while respecting agricultural heritage. This is architecture designed to enhance creative production quality, proving that in dense natural environments, architecture can create rich spatial experiences and retreat possibilities through thoughtful design.

Design Team — BodinChapa Architects, founded by principal designers Bodin Mueanglue and Phitchapa Lothong, operates as a collaborative studio where experienced architects work alongside emerging designers to explore contemporary interpretations of Thai vernacular architecture. The firm's design methodology centers on synthesizing local wisdom with modern construction technology, creating spaces that honor regional identity while embracing innovative spatial thinking. The practice's core philosophy emphasizes the expressive potential of localism rendered through various contemporary styles. Rather than merely preserving traditional forms, BodinChapa Architects investigates how simplicity and indigenous materials can reveal new architectural values. This approach manifests in projects that question conventional notions of dwelling and spatial experience, consistently seeking fresh perspectives on how people inhabit and interact with built environments.

Working from their base in Ayutthaya, Thailand, the studio maintains a deliberately compact team structure that facilitates dynamic idea exchange and collaborative design development. This organizational model allows the firm to maintain direct involvement in all project phases while nurturing young talent within the profession. Their work demonstrates a commitment to materiality, context, and craft, evident in projects like Cafe MADA in the Little Garden, where charred local timber and strategic site planning transform an agricultural landscape into contemplative gathering space. The firm continues to develop architectural solutions that balance regional specificity with contemporary programmatic demands. The team's design philosophy is reflected in their careful attention to local materials and construction traditions while maintaining acute responsiveness to contemporary spatial needs. By combining seasoned professionals with energetic emerging talent, BodinChapa Architects cultivates a design culture that is both rooted in local knowledge and oriented toward innovative solutions, committed to creating architecture that responds to Thailand's specific environmental and cultural contexts while advancing contemporary design practice boundaries.