This first article deals with expanding your house externally, adding that extra room to give you more space.
However, rather than merely expanding your living space as such, we are advocating using nature as much as possible, firstly to introduce that unsurpassed beauty that only nature can bring, much as in the way that flowering plants on a balcony can transform a mundane concrete structure into a blaze of colour, and secondly to use that beauty in a functional way so that it benefits you materially and nutritionally as well as aesthetically.

Conservatories
A conservatory is defined a room with a glass roof and walls, attached to a house and used as a sun lounge, or for growing delicate plants.
This is effectively like a greenhouse attached to the wall of a house, but, especially in Thailand, it would contain more robust broad-leafed tropical plants, giving a chiaroscuro of shade and light in different patterns cast by the interacting leaves of the plants or small trees.
The obvious advantage here in the tropics of a conservatory is that one wouldn’t be bothered by flying insects or by harsh sunlight because of the plant shade.
Coconut palms or banana plants could also be incorporated, as well as hanging plants in baskets. Sun loungers, tables and other furniture would provide the functionality, and you would be well advised to incorporate water features like fountains, stepped-waterfalls and ponds for the serenity that running water provides as well as humidifying the air, so that the whole ensemble gives a vibrantly colourful, aesthetically pleasing extra living space protected from the elements.
However, the above is a purely aesthetic conservatory designed to delight the senses. With the currently appalling situation with vegetables grown in Thailand, virtually all of which use pesticides to excess, including DDT (according to a noteworthy Australian environmentalist I met recently), it makes absolute sense to grow your own, so you can be assured that you and your family are not at risk.
The most eco-friendly houses have conservatories which span the whole wall of a house, but instead of decorative plants, vegetables and hanging vines are grown. The conservatory can still be furnished in the same way as the purely aesthetically pleasing conservatory described above. But this time, as well as the extra living space, you have a sustainable food source, which would save you money in the long run as well as giving you unpolluted and more nutritious vegetables.
In addition, the arrangement patterns of different rows of vegetables on ground level can still provide a modicum of colour to stimulate the senses.
Especially for those who live in condos and don’t have growing space, a technique known as hydroponics can be used to grow vegetables using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil with excellent results, as well as providing a colourful backdrop.
In fact, using hydroponics the quality of produce and yields are higher and more regular than with normal horticulture, pests, diseases and weeds are minimal and fresh vegetables and fruits can be grown in window-boxes, or on house or condo roofs.
Other advantages include faster growth, crop consistency, reduced growing areas, minimal labour, less cost, and some plants can be raised out of season. For those with gardens or conservatories, hydroponics makes equal sense for the reasons mentioned above.

Underground houses
Underground houses are a very agreeable alternative or an addition to conservatories if built correctly.
For a start they won’t detract from your overall acreage as a playing area or vegetable garden can be built on the roof of the house and if built sturdily and with a creative and imaginative design, can be even more fun than a normal house, especially for the kids!
One underground house that is both ultra-stylish and eco-friendly is a lavish 914.4 sqm five-bedroom dream home built by a Brit called Alex Michaelis in London for £600,000 (Bt33,320,430) and reviewed in the Daily Telegraph. The cost of building this superb chthonic residence would obviously be far less in Thailand, maybe a third of the cost.
Alex originally spent £750,000 (Bt41,650,538) on a plot in Notting Hill, London, but the council had imposed the proviso that the site could only be used if the finished building did not exceed the height of the six-foot surrounded wall, so, being a builder, he obviously decided the only way to get round that obstacle was to go underground.
The frankly spectacular underground house that Alex built has an indoor swimming pool, a “gleaming, white Corian slide that runs down from the ground-floor living area to the bedrooms” and solar panels over the carport that recharge his wife’s electric car, and provide constant hot water by operating a heat pump to bring water 300ft up from his specially sunk borehole.
Apart from normal hot water needs for washing, cooking and cleaning, this system also supplies the pool and under-floor heating. In addition, a filtration system provides potable, drinking water that is slightly sparkling and apparently delicious; something that would go down extremely well in Thailand.
“I wanted to show that you don’t have to wear sandals to do this sort of thing,” Alex quipped.
An underground house doesn’t have to be poky or resemblant of a Hobbit’s hovel as can be seen from the accompanying photos.
Alex’s house is 22 feet down into the ground, with the upper portion kept within the council’s six-foot high limits so that the house remains virtually entirely unseen from above ground.
To avoid the gloomy dungeon effect, Alex created a considerable amount of “sub-terraces” to function as light-wells. To supplement these, he constructed a very large roof-light in the living room, with smaller versions on the surrounding patio bringing in as much sunshine as possible into the basement bedrooms.
He also utilised the swimming pool, which is enclosed by transparent glass, thus combining with the light reflected from its surface to help illuminate the downstairs.
The walls and glass are as insulated as much as possible, with a field of sedum and thyme on the roof, which also retains heat.

The house is an absolute dream for the children, who thankfully Alex and his wife don’t object to being round virtually all the time; just as well considering the lack of doors in the house.
“Well, they do go to bed and then we have the house to ourselves,” Alex says, “but we quite like spending time with them. And they love having the space to run around inside, the slide and pool.”
There is also a utility room that apparently ‘resembles the control deck of a submarine – huge Heath Robinson pipes circle the ceiling space, there are giant tanks and something that appears to be entirely lagged in silver foil like a bad Doctor Who prop.’
Now, granted one doesn’t have to go the whole hog as Alex did, a single or double room underground would be quite sufficient for most purposes.
The underground house or room would obviously have to be adapted to a tropical climate with air conditioning, or an ingenious air throughput system; however, such an extension could be admirably adapted to life in Thailand.
One purpose to which such a house or rooms could be put to is a store, not for furniture or belongings, but to stockpile food and seed stocks.
We saw relatively recently how the cost of food soared and the same is predicted to happen in the near future, according to some pundits, especially when the price of petrol goes up as is again forecast.
To stockpile durable food while it is currently cheap obviously makes a great deal of sense as long as the insulation and storage facilities are insect, damp and fungus proof.
Likewise, to have one’s own supply of seed and root vegetables is also a viable alternative to the heavily polluted shop or market variety.

Permaculture
Permaculture resembles the relationships found in natural ecologies, so that the principles of synergy and interdependence become paramount.
What this means to the average householder is that their home increasingly takes an outdoor focus as they become progressively more involved in their gardens, not too difficult in Thailand, where life is often a mixture of internal and external living.
The garden then becomes an extra room in itself. The emphasis is upon growing multiple crops with the ultimate intention of becoming self-sufficient. The way to do this is by closely observing the natural web of interactions in nature and attempting to copy them, using as many natural elements as possible.
For example, the sun provides a plant with energy to grow. Then the plant may subsequently be pollinted by beesor eaten or stored temporarily by animals that naturally disperse the seeds, which if acorns, for example, would grow into oak trees to provide shelter for other plants and birds.
The trees’ leaves then drop and rot, providing food for small insects and fungus and the bees’ honey can be harvested for human consumption. Thus, every constituent component within the network sustains everything else.
A householder would follow this pattern, planting diverse crops, frequently perennials to reduce labour, using natural materials as far as possible and the natural energies of wind, gravity, solar, fire, and water.
In addition as many animals and fowl as the land could sustain could also be reared for their meat, milk, eggs and other products. Instead of inorganic fertilisers, natural ones, such as the manure from the animals and compost, would be used, with insects, or chickens or ducks encouraged that would naturally combat other pests and perform weed control.
Both underground houses and conservatories would easily fit seamlessly into this life design conception. Self-sufficiency could easily be achieved with the natural beauty of the diverse elements contributing to produce an overall sense of well-being and satisfaction in knowing that one is doing one’s bit to help the environment, radically reducing dependence on factory products, and involving the whole family in productive efforts and thus leading a more fulfilling life – what could be more beautiful than that? Ω