There are a tremendous number of condominiums (condominia?) being built here in Khrungthep.  It seems that not a single day passes without some new project being announced.  They are sprouting up faster than, well… things that sprout up very quickly, there being a lack of things that sprout up quickly in the Big Mango to which I can compare the condos.

One of these new condominiums is Wind Sukhumvit 23, located just a block over from our current apartment at the corner of two small sois that form part of the Green Line, the maze-like connection of sois that can take you from Asoke to Ekkamai without ever touching Sukhumvit.

Wind is built on the intriguing premise that if you include light and air wells into the design of your building, then each unit can have true cross-ventilation simply by opening windows at either end of the unit.  It is an idea that has worked well in New York, San Francisco, Hong Kong, London, … so many cities around the world … that I’m surprised it is seen as a novel concept here.  Given the high heat and the high price of electricity, I think it is a brilliant idea.

You can see the construction of Wind in the picture to the left.  It is the plot of land with the red crane on it.  There is a new serviced apartment being built to the right of it, of which about five stories are already complete.  As an interesting bit of trivia, the next building to the right of the serviced apartment (it is obscured in this picture by the large condo tower in the front right of the picture), is the Khrungthep headquarters of the Shinawatra Silk Company.  Does the name sound familiar?  That’s right, it is owned by the extended family of ousted Prime Minister and coup sufferer, Thaksin Shinawatra.  The family’s initial fortune was made in silk and textiles.

Wind Sukhumvit 23 is a very good location.  At the corner of Soi 23 and Soi 21/2, it is just 500 meters (10-12 minutes’ walk) from the Skytrain and MRTA Subway station.  There are several small restaurants and services nearby, in fact the foot massage parlor and small open-air restaurant Tawn and I frequent are just on the next corner over.  And the location is central between Sukhumvit and Phetchaburi, close to the Rama IX expressway. 

It is the nature of these small sois, with their uneven sidewalks, gnarled trees, and series of well-gated private residences and very open chophouses, that I find a very attractive part of Khrungthep.  Which was why, when I saw the brochure that the Wind Sukhumvit 23 sales office is handing out, I just had to write a blog entry.

Below is the illustration from the brochure.  Pay particularly attention to the area around the base of the condominium.

When I saw this illustration, I couldn’t contain my laughter.  When I see models of these new condominiums, the area surrounding the actual property development is usually covered with that felt-like faux grass.  Sure, it is a convenient shorthand instead of building models of all the surrounding buildings, and it is really just a teeny-tiny step from reality to… how shall we say it, marketing reality. 

But in this illustration it appears that Wind is surrounded not by grass, but by lush trees – a veritable urban oasis.  Soi 23 does have some trees, yes, but those trees are all interspersed with buildings.  This seems to be more than a teeny-tiny step away from reality.  More like a few long strides.

The slide from reality to marketing continues when you look at the street on which Wind is situated.  In the brochure, the condominium (and the lush oasis) face a wide boulevard with a palm tree-planted median.  Below is a picture of that location, taken from what would be the lower left-hand corner of the illustration, if they had included the cross-soi.

Wide boulevard?  Palm-planted median?  Puh-leeze.  It is a small soi (as all of them around here are) with just a single lane in each direction and no room for parking.  There is no median to speak of.  Quite the stretch from reality, in my opinion.

Oh, well, that’s how they sell condos here.

I can just see it, though: one morning about eighteen months from now, a new condo owner will wake up and step out onto the balcony of her well-ventilated unit to enjoy her morning coffee and to take in the view of the surrounding neighborhood.  She has a thought of something she saw last night while sorting through a pile of papers.  Yes, it was the sales brochure for this very condo, scribbled with notes.  She retrieves it from the kitchen table, stepping back onto the balcony to flip through it.  Coming to the illustration of the building, she compares it to the reality she sees around her, and lets out a little laugh.