SLABTITUDE CAFE
Narrative Photo Series by Apichai Sundaravej
This rather unique wooden counter once existed in a whole another living entity from what it is perceived at this moment.
Deep in the rugged terrain of Malaysian’s tropical jungle, some 1,500 kilos to the south from Bangkok where it now is, it resided for decades inside one particular trunk in the form of unmeasurable wooden mass, without dimension of weight, width or hight.
Out of nothing before that particular tree was born, it came to being and expanded as the organic living gradually grew and aged, days after days, years after years. Not a single conscious mind had ever aware of it’s existent all along.
It’s current appearance can be described as long, narrow, zigzagging and floating horizontally in the air without leg. Metal spine along it’s length acting as it’s supporting back bone with a huge pier underneath the coffee machine, holding it in place.
The 7 meter long counter crawls like a giant python. It cuts diagonally through the middle of the room, splitting it in half and directing how the space flows.
After the tree fell, the counter took it first shape and dimension in the sawmill. A long rectangular piece of wooden slab laid in silent somewhere between stacks in the warehouse for quite sometime.
Vasu was developing his design theme for the new “Slabtitude” cafe which is an extension in front of his Vaslab Architecture studio compound.
He is well established as an architect with his concrete “slab” design signature. He had the name which composed of “Slab+Attitude” in mind. Until he stumbled upon this particular piece of shorea wooden “slab” from THICK AND THIN studio, his idea was finalized.
From inside of a random tree trunk in the heart of Malaysian’s mountainous rainforest, the wooden slab has transformed once again to another stage of entity. It is re-existed with new definition, function and purpose.
