Eco Epiphany

I was recently recommended to stay at the eccentric ‘Reflections’ hotel in Bangkok by a good friend. Its owned by the Thai artist & designer Anusorn Ngernyuang (aka Nong) who first came onto the scene roughly ten years ago with a series of brightly coloured rice sacks transformed into traditional carpenters bags.  He quickly expanded the concept into a range of accessories called ‘Global Trash Chic’ & not long after opened the first Reflections hotel that was born from the same eco-creative credentials.

The first incarnation was demolished last year for more offices but the money used to create a new larger hotel footprint close by & this is where I checked in. Each of the 35ish rooms are individually designed by a variety of established artists & designers from Thailand & South-East Asia. All feature reclaimed or reinterpreted materials & furniture & have fantastic names like ‘My Boo Shit’, ‘Hong Kong Pat’ & ‘I Love Rice’.

I wanted to stay in one of the Nong designed rooms called ‘Trash Chic’ for the first night. The space was easily big enough to swing a cat around in & a snip at 1,500 Baht a night (approx. £25).  It featured rice sacks as wallpaper, a rainbow coloured zipper bed sheet with matching chairs & corrugated iron partitions to the bathroom. Knowing that each room was different I moved for the remainder of the stay to another called ‘Concrete Jungle’. The designers name escapes me but the room was even bigger than before with reclaimed wooden walls ala Shoreditch House, handmade bird silhouette light shades & a his ‘n’ hers walk in shower - the walls studded with Beer Chang & Singha bottle ends.

The interesting thing about Reflections is that it is naturally quite rough around the edges & it’s really not a problem because you know that it should be.  All the spaces use an eye-watering hit of colour & pattern to create excitement & you turn a blind eye to any messy paintwork because of it all being pieced together from recycled materials & objects.  It is an approach in harmony with one of the world’s busiest, most colourful & overwhelming cities.  Despite this potential chaos both rooms I stayed in were comfortable spaces to relax in and felt considered in a home from home kind of way, meaning that I had an amazing nights sleep in each.

I have never been excited by eco-design but in this context it felt appropriate & inspiring – it’s also very commendable because Thailand is in many areas incredibly polluted & industrial.  Ecology & sustainability are not at the fore front of the country’s psyche, however one of its fascinating contradictions is that on an individual level its inhabitants have long reused & recycled without thinking about it, simply to make do.  All of this made me think of an excellent book I’d seen called ‘Thailand: Same Same, But Different!’ (A popular Thai phrase used by hawkers to sell fake Rolex’s & Man Utd Shirts).

All week long over breakfast I had been eyeing up a distinctive tablecloth in the main lobby – white with scribbled black figures.  Although it wasn’t for sale I made an offer for it at the reception before I left & they accepted. Delighted I have now returned with my own crazy little piece of Thailand & very much in the spirit of the Reflections ethos I am planning on some innovative ways to reuse & reinterpret it in my home.

By Thomas Howlett

http://www.reflections-thai.com/index.html

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