CHAT architects

The Na-Eh Bamboo Market for the Indigenous Karen Pwo Community.
Rachaburi Province, Thailand

In collaboration with: Yer der ner
Funded by the Thailand Office of Contemporary Art and Culture, The Ministry of Culture
Builder: Chusilp Cheechuang and the Na-Eh Community Builders
Project Designer: Napat Yanotai
Photos by W Workspace

For generations, the Karen Pwo indigenous people of Thailand had lived in natural isolation, thriving in harmony with the forests and mountains of Rachaburi Province. In recent history however, their community, for better or for worse, have adopted the ways of Modern Thai society -- enjoying 7-Eleven snacks, wearing city fashions, and scrolling Tik Tok viral videos-- drifting further and further away from their indigenous cultural heritage and connections to the forest. On the one hand, the community yearns for a return to the deep relationship with nature and natural way of life. On the other hand, they can no longer live in forest isolation and need to economically and socially sustain themselves in contemporary Thai society.

The Na-Eh Market aims to create a negotiation between the conflicts inherent in Karen daily life. The program includes open-air stalls for 10 existing Karen food vendors and covered eating area for customers. The plot on which they sit faces a local highway and contains a traditional Karen ‘rotational’ crop garden in the front, and a locally-grown forest in the rear. A new bamboo market “vessel” is “grown” at the line between these two ecologies.

In conceptualizing their new market with the architect, the Karen community did not want to simply create “food stalls” or “market”. Instead, they requested an environment in which they can cook and eat as a community while “feeling” nature. In response to this unique request, a triangulated bamboo structure was envisioned as a “breeze vessel” that invites the wind. The lower half of contains 9 food stalls while the upper half is an elevated eating open-air mezzanine …where customers can dine and observe local ‘tung’ mobiles moved by the wind…and listen to bamboo wind chimes against the backdrop of nearby forest harmonies. The Na-Eh Bamboo market was constructed by the Karen Pwo community themselves from the plentiful local bamboo forests.

Chat Chuenrudeemol, Director of Chat Architects, will be teaching Spring 2026 Options Studio, entitiled "Shophouse Metropolis", at Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Chat Chuenrudeemol Chat Chuenrudeemol is an architect deeply impacted by the beauty and ugliness of Bangkok. His architectural firm, Chat Architects, focuses on