Athita The Hidden Court Chiang Saen has been named Winner in Best of Small Hotel Design at the TIDA Awards 2024. The recognition celebrates a hospitality project that gives contemporary form to the cultural landscape of Chiang Saen, a historic town on the banks of the Mekong.

A contemporary stay shaped by an ancient town

Designed by Studio Miti, Athita The Hidden Court is located within the old city of Chiang Saen, an important northern Thai settlement whose history reaches back more than a millennium. The town’s ancient walls, Buddhist temples and archaeological remains are part of its everyday setting, while Lanna and Sukhothai influences remain present in its spatial character and local ways of life.

The project responds to this context with restraint. Rather than treating heritage as a decorative image, the architecture seeks a living dialogue between old and new. It draws on the town’s material memory, climate and unhurried rhythm to create a place where guests can experience Chiang Saen through texture, light, shadow and the movement between sheltered interiors and open courts.

Design rooted in place

Athita reinterprets local materials such as timber and brick in a contemporary language. Timber brings warmth, craftsmanship and the intimate scale of domestic life; brick recalls the temples, walls and ruins that give Chiang Saen its enduring identity. Together, these materials allow the architecture to belong to its setting without copying the past.

Courtyards are central to the experience. They bring landscape, air and daylight into the heart of the stay, creating a gentle balance between privacy and openness. Architecture, landscape and local craft are considered as one continuous composition, allowing the hotel to feel both grounded in its region and relevant to the present.

Recognition through the TIDA Awards 2024

The TIDA Awards recognise interior design and built-environment projects through the Thailand Interior Designers’ Association. For Athita, the Best of Small Hotel Design award honours an approach to hospitality in which architecture is not separated from culture, community or place. It is a recognition of design that listens closely to Chiang Saen and translates that listening into a calm, meaningful guest experience.

Explore Athita’s rooms and villas, discover the wellness experience, or read more about the material heritage behind the project in Heritage on the Banks of the Mekong.