Thailand

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Design

A 17-Story Dragon Climbs Thailand’s Pink 80-Meter Buddhist Temple

via @nicopicz

The Samphran district of Thailand holds one of the most unique Buddhist temples found in the country. The bright pink temple, called Wat Samphran, stands 17-stories high and is wrapped in a scaly green dragon. The design of the structure came to the founder of the temple during a 7-day fasting meditation, and is built 80 meters tall to honor the number of years that Buddha lived.

Visitors can climb the great building and touch the dragon’s beard or large talons from an access point on the roof. You can get a 360 perspective on the gigantic temple in the Great Big Story video below.

via @somos_aloha_mundo

via @mundo_nomada_travel

via @seryachkova

via @hydrosapien

Design

A Bamboo Recreation Facility Inspired by the Lotus Flower Blooms in Thailand

The Panyaden International School is an education center located in Chiang Mai, Thailand built entirely from natural materials. Architecture firm Chiangmai Life recently designed a covered recreation hall for the school’s sports teams, creating a 2,500-square-foot bamboo terrace that echos the Buddhist values found in the school’s curriculum. The lotus-inspired structure was built without any steel reinforcements or other manmade materials, and stays naturally cool in the city’s humid climate while also withstanding high-speed winds and earthquakes. (via Inhabitat)

Photography

Halo Effect: Swimmers in Thailand Surrounded by Clouds of Bioluminescent Phytoplankton

When photographer Will Strathmann was recently in Krabi, Thailand, he decided to head out during a full moon to witness the effects of bioluminescent phytoplankton in the nearby Andaman Sea. His curiosity was rewarded by a small group of swimmers who were causing the microscopic organisms to light up by agitating the water around them. The result was this amazing shot. You can see more of Strathmann’s photography on Instagram. (via NatGeo)

Photography

An Abandoned Bangkok Shopping Mall Hides a Fishy Secret

Photo © Jesse Rockwell

In most post-apocalyptic films when the camera pans down the abandoned streets of New York or Tokyo, long after people have disappeared and the buildings have fallen into disrepair, we see nature again thriving. Trees and plants take hold in the sidewalks and wild animals like deer, bears, and lions stalk the ruins left behind by humans. But after descending the staircase at a vacant shopping mall in Bangkok, professional cook and photographer Jesse Rockwell discovered a wholly different take on beasts inheriting the Earth: fish. Specifically exotic koi and catfish, teeming by the thousands in a secret subterranean aquarium. Rockwell shares via his blog:

New World shopping mall, a four storey former shopping mall. Originally constructed as an eleven storey building. It was found to be in breach of old town Bangkok’s four storey limit on building heights. The top seven floors were demolished to adhere to building codes in 1997. In 1999 the mall burned due to suspected arson committed by a competitor in the area. The disaster resulted in several casualties, and the building has remained abandoned ever since. Not having a roof, the basement floor remains under several feet of water year round.

At some point in the early 2000s an unknown person began introducing a small population of exotic Koi and Catfish species. The small population of fish began to thrive and the result is now a self-sustained, and amazingly populated urban aquarium.

What an amazing discovery. It makes you wonder what else lurks in abandoned places around the world? You can see more of Rockwell’s photography over on 500px and on his website, Taste of the Road. (via James Theophane, The Verge)

Photo © Jesse Rockwell

Photo © Jesse Rockwell

Photo © Jesse Rockwell

Photo © Jesse Rockwell

Photo © Jesse Rockwell

Photo © Jesse Rockwell

Amazing

Koh Yao Noi: A Beautiful Aerial Tour of an Undeveloped Island in Thailand by Philip Bloom

This has been shared far and wide around the web over the last week, but if you haven’t seen it yet take a quick gander at filmmaker Philip Bloom‘s (previously) visit to Koh Yao Noi, one of the least developed islands in Thailand. Bloom shot the piece while on vacation using a GoPro camera and a Quadcopter, the details of which he goes into over on his blog. It’s nice to see Bloom making use of technology to quickly establish such a strong sense of place. (via Coudal)