A new hotel for Nong Khai

The "LiveInn Nong Khai" is one of Nong Khai's newest hotels, however they are already finding themselves full to capacity and needing to expand. We have been commissioned to design a new 6 storey 80 room building to add additional space. The new building will house a new larger reception area to replace the one in the existing building. There will also be a restaurant and conference facility. We are now busy developing our initial concept - I will be posting some 3D renderings of the concept as it develops. Construction is due to begin later this year.

"Amoon on the Mekong" - Luxury guest house design

I have not blogged about this project before, however it is one that we have been working on for over a year, now.  I enjoy all of our design and construction projects, but this one has been particularly thrilling to have been a part of so far.  "Amoon on the Mekong" will be a luxury guest house in an idyllic setting amongst 13 Rai (5 Acres) of mature trees on the banks of the Mekong River, backed by the rolling hills of Sangkhom and enjoying wonderful views across the river to Laos.

When we were first approached, the design project was well underway.  Our client had already been working with an architect in Australia for a number of years developing an architectural concept.  This concept has remained largely unchanged, so I can not take credit for all of the architectural design, however we have worked with the client to make tweaks and alterations to achieve a final design.  We also carried out all of the necessary structural analysis, electrical and plumbing engineering work to produce all of the necessary construction drawings and documentation.

We are still working with the client to look at additional potential refinements to the final design.  The construction phase of the project is due for completion before December 2012.











Korean Barbecue Restaurant Design Concept

I recently prepared an initial concept for a two storey Korean barbecue restaurant.  There are a large number of  Korean Barbecue restaurants in Nong Khai of which "999" is one of the most popular.  So much so, that they are outgrowing their current location and are intending to move in to their new premises by the end of this year.  The restaurant will be spread over two separate plots of land, one of which already has a house on it.  I designed the new building to use the existing column and beam structure of the current building and then extend into the adjacent vacant land.  The restaurant will be two storey, with the second floor being half covered and half open air terrace.  The plot is on the Rim Khong road, which runs next to the Mekong River, so the roof terrace will enjoy excellent views across the river to Laos.  Having received approval of the concept, we are now developing this into a final design and complete set of engineering drawings.







Second time lucky....

We attempted to excavate the footings for our latest project a couple of days ago.....  unfortunately, we encountered a rocky seam about half a meter down full of huge rocks that proved to be too much of a challenge for the small excavator that we were using.  The reason for initially using a small excavator is that it produces much neater holes that require less manual 'dressing' prior to pouring the concrete footings.  Today we are continuing with a larger excavator that is more up to the task of removing the large rocks!