Keeree Tara Riverside is a brand new restaurant intended as a replacement of its original branch located nearby. The restaurant itself is one of the most popular and successful Thai restaurants in Kanchanaburi, so the owner decided to maintain a sense of the traditional Thai style reflected on the building that links to the Thai dishes served. Due to its small property size, especially when compared to the required functions of a major restaurant branch, the restaurant needs to be able to support large-scale events such as seminars, and weddings. This resulted in having a large commissary kitchen of over a thousand square meters in order to fully support any future expansions and the nearby branches. Not only that Keeree Tara has to house a large service facility but as the site is adjacent to the Kwai river – it is also crucial to take advantage of this view for both the indoor and outdoor dining zones.

The design process started from the limitation; with finding the most functional location for most of the services and the commissary kitchen – which takes up most of the available space on the first floor. This in combination with a high ceiling results in a large building mass that fills up the space and obstructs the view of the river. Therefore, the main kitchen and services are placed on the first level behind a large staircase, which leads all visitors to the second level where the entry foyer along with other usable functions for guests are located. The foyer further diverts to the banquet hall on the third level but also continuously leads the visitors to the dining terrace which has been designed with alternating levels that gradually gets closer to the river bank, resulting in an area that can be separated into several dining zones. On the third level, a banquet hall was placed to hold functions such as seminars or weddings. The hall is surrounded with a veranda and an additional dining zone with a higher view towards the river.

KANCHANABURI, THAILAND