AKU ASA Volunteer Camp Builds School Toilet from Reclaimed Wood in Suphanburi, Thailand

Forty-one architecture student volunteers constructed a sanitary facility for Song Phi Nong Primary School in Suphanburi Province, Thailand, during an eleven-day camp. The project, titled Phi Sorn Nong Toilet, was designed by SEP studio and marks the first time the annual AKU ASA Volunteer Camp has tackled a toilet rather than the pavilions and multipurpose halls of previous editions. The site offered open ground shaded by a mature Nontri tree, and the layout uses that shade and natural airflow to turn the space between sinks and stalls into an area for cooling off, resting, or play. Reclaimed wood from the school's original Chinese-style classroom, built roughly sixty years earlier, was sourced for the new structure, linking it physically to the school's past. Every component was built by hand by volunteers who arrived with almost no construction experience. By choosing a toilet, the camp shifted focus toward sanitary design and plumbing systems shaped by both building and site. The design team was led by SEP studio, and the project was submitted through designboom's DIY submissions feature. The result is a modest building that reframes what a student volunteer camp can teach, extending architecture education beyond form-making into infrastructure, material reuse, and the transfer of craft knowledge between generations.