FEATURE
Robert Sukrachand
Organization
PERN BAAN
Location
Chiang Mai, TH
Type
Interview
Contact
We’ve previously covered Pern Baan’s shophouse opening, but now we have the honor of speaking with founder Robert Sukrachand about his remarkable journey. Our conversation was one of the most insightful we’ve had—giving us a glimpse into precisely the kind of cross-cultural design exchange we questioned was possible in this day and age. The typical Asian American experience is often characterized by not quite belonging in either world, but Robert has masterfully inverted this narrative. Rather than being caught between worlds, he’s positioned himself as a vital bridge connecting design communities across continents, transforming what might have been perceived as displacement into a powerful creative advantage.
Pern Baan, which translates to “neighbors” in Thai, embodies this philosophy perfectly. At its core, the initiative seeks to connect designers and artisans across geographical divides, creating meaningful cross-cultural collaborations that enrich both participants. What began as personal design research trips to Thailand has evolved into a platform where craft knowledge flows in multiple directions. In Ban Pa Ao, a heritage brass casting village in Ubon Ratchathani, centuries-old techniques produce beautifully distinctive objects that celebrate their making process. Meanwhile, American designers find new possibilities through Thailand’s rich craft ecosystem, resulting in pieces that honor tradition while pushing formal boundaries. Each collaboration—whether a lamp with a special patina produced by rice husk and ammonia or marble objects that reimagine conventional forms—emerges through mutual exchange rather than extraction, with Robert acting as the thoughtful interpreter between worlds.
Although many beautiful collaborations have already emerged and the shophouse doors are now open, it’s clear that we’re witnessing just the beginning of Pern Baan’s journey. The accomplishments so far, impressive as they are, feel like preludes to the greater impact and innovations yet to come. Robert himself has lived many creative lives—furniture designer, photographer, cultural translator—bringing a uniquely multifaceted perspective to this venture. There is perhaps no one better suited to nurture these connections, as he moves between craft communities with genuine reverence while consistently discovering new creative territories. We often romanticize the transformative power of design, but it’s organizations like Pern Baan—creating actual connections between different making traditions—that truly advance our cultural evolution. By establishing physical and metaphorical spaces where craftspeople from different backgrounds can exchange knowledge, Robert isn’t just preserving heritage techniques but ensuring they remain vital, relevant, and economically sustainable. As he puts it, “Cultural exchange should be in the DNA of how we live our lives,” and through Pern Baan, we’re witnessing exactly how that philosophy takes beautiful, tangible form.
You’ve mentioned feeling like you never had a “discernible home.” How has that sense of being between places influenced your approach to design?
When I began building furniture in Brooklyn around 12 years ago, I don’t think my personal background informed my designs a whole lot. But a year or 2 before Covid I realized that the balance in my life wasn’t working, and I wanted to find ways to be connected to both of my homes.
That’s when I started taking design research trips to Thailand. The first one was to visit BKK Design Week in 2019. There was a question I was trying to answer: could design be an alternate language for connecting people in far away places/cultures? From the beginning I found that the answer was a resounding yes. A mutual interest in design or craft provided a common ground and quick dissolution of barriers. So I started to embrace this ‘in between’ space and look for ways to engage design in both of my homes – to put them in conversation with one another. PERN BAAN is what emerged from that.
You made a significant shift from your established New York practice to launch Pern Baan in Chiang Mai. What prompted this change, and how has it transformed your approach to design?
The primary transformation in my approach to design is that it became more collaborative. My studio practice in Brooklyn was very much in the ‘solo maker’ mold. I had a few part time employees over the years, but for the most part it was a one man show of design, fabrication, and running the business. That changed completely when I came to Thailand. Suddenly there was this rich ecosystem of artisans around the country to collaborate with, and my inclination was to look for ways to pair these craftspeople with design friends from back in NY.
The first collaborations happened very organically. I would say to myself, this Ban Pa Ao brass casting technique would be perfect to introduce to my friend Pat Kim; or Steven Bukowski’s shapes and colors would be amazing to render in this local Thai marble. So we just started making things, prototyping. I’d be sending emails or Facetiming with friends back in New York and then head out to the workshops here in Thailand to see if we could translate those concepts into a physical product. Most of the collaborations required many rounds of testing before we ended with a product we loved, and the artisans here in Thailand have been patient and engaged partners.
So in a lot of ways you could say my role these days is less of designer and more like a translator. Being that connective tissue between two communities that I love really suits me.
You work with materials and communities that carry generations of craft history. How do you approach suggesting contemporary innovations while respecting these deep-rooted traditions?
In my experience, the respect starts with the relationship you develop with your partners. We don’t approach a community and just jump into making products. It starts with curiosity, learning, and mutual exchange. You need to build trust, and once that’s underlying the relationship, I haven’t found there to be much pushback when I ask if we can build something that deviates from ‘tradition’. The reality is that what we refer to as ‘traditional craft’ today was at some point an evolution of something that came before.
I steer away from reappropriating specific motifs or forms as related to ceremony or religion, as those could certainly cross a line into being disrespectful.
There’s often a delicate balance between preserving traditional crafts and making them commercially viable. How do you navigate pricing and market realities while ensuring fair compensation for artisans?
Our work doesn’t try to preserve traditional craft in a very explicit way, but it’s a byproduct that we hope results from our collaborations.
We say to ourselves: there is an abundance of craft knowledge and artisanship here in Thailand, so let’s work together with these skilled people while at the same time enriching the design language of our collaborators in the US and the homes of our customers. We don’t approach it with a capitalist mindset right from the beginning thinking about dollars, margins and sales.
I don’t find that we need to ensure fair compensation for our artisan partners because they all set their own prices and we don’t bargain. If a design is too complex, and the price we are quoted is not affordable or if a prototype didn’t turn out the way we wanted, then we simply move on and try to make something else. The balance that we’re finding is in what’s achievable to make, cost effective for us and our customers, but also making sure that it’s work our craft collaborators are happy to produce. If anyone is unhappy in this exchange then it isn’t sustainable in the long run.
The design world often moves at a rapid pace, while traditional craftsmanship requires time and patience. How do you reconcile these different rhythms in your work?
For us this hasn’t been a difficulty. COVID was the great reset and people around the world learned that they can’t have instant gratification. If our customer really wants something, they’ll wait for it. Why? Because our responsibility as a company is to tell the story of our process and our makers. If we do our job correctly, then our customer understands that it takes time.
For certain products, such as our Saraburi Marble Blob Sconce, we sell in high enough volume that we are able to produce and keep inventory of a few hundred lamps in the US at all times. That kind of ease and efficiency is not possible with every product, so for the more unique items, we’re just honest about the process and lead times.
How do you ensure that the stories and voices of the artisans you work with remain central to the narrative of each piece, especially when marketing to a Western audience?
We don’t hold ourselves to too high of a standard in this regard, because there isn’t one simple narrative about what PERN BAAN produces or what the state of Thai design/craftsmanship is. Not everything that is being made here in Thailand is valuable only through the lens of artisanship; it’s more fluid than that.
The contemporary Thai design + craft ecosystem contains, but is not limited to: traditional craft/cottage industry; large factories that employ dozens to hundreds of skilled workers who produce goods in both natural and man made materials; solo makers in urban center who have studied abroad and have more in common with a furniture maker in Brooklyn than they do a craftsperson in rural Thailand. I hope that PERN BAAN can share all those stories and give our customers a more complete picture of what Thai design is today.
Working with a traditional craft community like Ban Pa Ao brass casting village is dramatically different than working with the motorcycle parts factory that produces the metal frame for our OTS Chair. So some products lend themselves to highlighting the voices of artisans, while other products are about sharing the story of a collaboration between a designer from New York and the potential of manufacturing in Thailand.
As traditional craft communities age, what role do you see Pern Baan playing in attracting younger generations to these practices?
My personal feeling is that it would be presumptuous to assume that we can make a real impact in this space, but to the extent that even a few young people see the value in preserving craft as a result of our work, that will be heartening.
If you look at a place like Ban Pa Ao Brass casting village which is located in a rural part of Thailand, the young people there do not have a lot of economic opportunities but they are still growing up with TikTok, social media, smartphones, etc. With these kinds of global currents pulling at them, they can’t be expected to have an interest in traditional craft any more than a kid their age growing up in NYC. To push that on someone would be quite paternalistic, so I’m sensitive about engaging in this in a direct way when I’m in the village.
I should note that probably around 90% of traditional craft – as it was practiced on a village level – has already disappeared here in Thailand. All we can do is hope that by setting an example, we’ll encourage some young people to follow in our footsteps. Maybe they will be the next ones to iterate or evolve. One of the ways that we may do this in the future is by hosting workshops in our studio as well as producing exchange trips with makers like those in Ban Pa Ao. Sharing of ideas and celebrating one another’s cultures is in my experience the best way to affirm the importance of and build pride in one’s history.
What does success look like for you with Pern Baan long term—not just as a design initiative, but as a platform for cultural exchange?
I’d love to see it take a life of its own. If I had to put in one sentence what the mission of PERN BAAN is it would be this: to connect our two homes, the US and Thailand, through design and craft. That could take so many different forms, and there’s only so much I can drive through my own energy. My hope is that by first creating the space – both physically and digitally – for that kind of connection to happen, that others will step in and take the next step.
That could occur through our future Design Residency initiative, workshops that are taught in our space, dinners and special events on our rooftops, an endless number of potential craft collaborations between new designers and new crafts communities. When you produce these types of collaborations, the cultural exchange happens naturally. People learn from one another, keep in touch, and maybe work together in the future. I like to think that this synthesis will happen organically as a result of the work that PERN BAAN does. It should be fluid and not forced. Cultural exchange should be in the DNA of how we live our lives, not something that only happens during a special occasion or through a one-off initiative.
