BOONSERM PREMTHADA’S GOYA TOWER OPENS IN PHANG NGA
In Phang Nga, south Siamelephants are part of both the cultural memory and the ecological landscape. Nearby, a limestone mountain known as Khao Chang, or Elephant Mountain, is said to resemble a reclining elephant stone. Designed by Boonserm Premthada with Bangkok Project Studio, Goya Tower continues this connection in built form, standing at the entrance to the Matalay Project as a new public lookout named after a female elephant born in the area.
The observation tower invites visitors to climb through a sequence of cylindrical columns, curved corridors, light and shadow. As they climb, views of street, garden, forest, sky and sea gradually unfold across the surrounding area landscapeextending the experience beyond the summit and into the slow pace of the climb.
the observation tower invites visitors to climb through a sequence of cylindrical columns | all images courtesy of Spaceshift Studio
HANDMADE ORGANIC BRICKS FORM THE TOWER
The project started with a simple question: could what elephants leave behind become architecture and could it support a creative economy for the communities that raise elephants? Each circular brick is hand made using elephant dung, measuring 33cm in diameter and 5cm thick. Produced in five natural colors and never fired, the bricks rely on hands, sunlight and time.
During construction, each brick is threaded onto a central steel rod and stacked according to a carefully designed color scheme. Through repetition, weight and touch, organic material becomes structure and surface. With the Goya Tower, of Premthada Research moves beyond the collection of objects or museums to become a full-scale public space—a space that visitors can enter, touch, climb, and inhabit.
boonserm premthada forms the observation tower as a sequence of cylindrical columns and curved corridors
FROM TA KLANG VILLAGE TO FULL-SCALE ARCHITECTURE
The search for the material behind the Goya Tower began far from Phang Nga, with a single brick of elephant dung carried in a backpack from the village of Ta Klang. What initially appeared as an improbable experiment, met with laughter and skepticism, gradually evolved into a long-term investigation into how elephant farming communities could create new forms of art, value and architectural production.
Over time, elephant dung brick entered the collections of institutions such as MoMA and the M+ Museum, but the Goya Tower brings this research back to the landscape. Here, brick is no longer just an object to be preserved or displayed. it becomes part of a larger cycle between animals, humans and the land, suggesting an architecture shaped not only by humans, but also by elephants, sunlight and the landscape of Phang Nga.
the tower invites visitors to climb through changing light, shadow and views of the surrounding landscape
