The HOF Weblog

Here is a collection of links that have somehow or another influenced the design concepts behind HOF:

• Cool Thai House is a good reference site for anyone thinking about building a house in Thailand. Plenty of advice from graduates of the school of hard knocks there.

• Fireflies & Cancer: believe it or not, they're somehow related.

• House of the Blue Leaves was a restaurant where two major fight scenes in Kill Bill took place.

• hof.kimfucious.com is the Official HOF Website where other materials on HOF are stored such as concept sketches, photos, and autoCAD files.

• The Jim Thompson House is now a museum, but was home of one of the most influencial and controversial farangs of Thailand.

• kimfucious dot com - is the basis for all things kimfucious and the birthplace of kimfucianism.

• Mae Rim Ceramic Studio makes hand-crafted ceramic tiles to order. This place is great. I found it over three years ago when we first moved here and bought all our flatware here in Tea-dust. My favorite is the imperfection room where deals are to be had. We've decided to incorporate Mae Rim tiles into HOF instead of using the ubiquitous run-of-the-mill crap from Cotto or getting too extravagant with marble that I imagine I'd slip and break my neck on one day. Khun Mao has the patience of a saint for keeping me company in her showroom usually for hours at a time, as I ponder colors, textures, and other things ceramic.

• Mike Burns' - Major Earth is an example of modern organic architecture. It really is something to behold.

• May '37 is an architectural firm in Chiangmai created by Prasert Tongprasert (a.k.a. Ajaarn Daeng). Without him none of this would be happening right now, or maybe it would but it would be shite without him.

• Shibui is a Japanese word that translates as subdued, tasteful, refined. Shibui can be used to describe the taste of a certain kind of tea, scenery of a gray, brown or moss green colour, or the impression a person gets from looking at the face of a certain kind of older person.

• Sukiya-Zukuri is a style of Japanese architecture employing the elements of the Japanese tea house. This guy from Hawaii gets really into it.

• I found Thai Tatami by sheer googling after I found that to actually import tatami--even from Kunming--was egregiously expensive. Although Takahashi-san didn't honor the quotation he'd given me 9 months prior, I still went ahead and purchased six mats for the center of our tatami room.

This list is not complete and will grow as time goes on.