A startup campus designed to bring local and foreign communities together

The first thing you’ll notice about True Digital Park is the beauty of its architecture.

The three buildings that comprise the startup campus are filled with wide-open spaces and rooms that are lined with tall glass windows that provide natural light.

Photo credit: Chulawit Santipong and Saguan Wongwitoonwid

A corridor with long tables for quiet meetings might let out to a buzzing community space, and co-working spaces live alongside green recreational parks and a retail center. This combination showcases how True Digital Park blends traditional work areas with community spaces to change how companies operate in the modern workplace.

The campus’ office space spans across 77,000 square meters and is home to a massive 16-story skyscraper, co-working spaces, and innovation labs.

It started with a gamble

When Thai telco giant True Corporation launched the True Digital Park project in 2016, it didn’t seem like it would succeed. Despite the rising popularity of Bangkok as a tech hub, Thailand has a relatively low startup density of one for every 113,000 people, especially when compared to Southeast Asian neighbors like Singapore, which has one startup for every 2,800 people.

The project was conceived based on the notion that if all the necessary ingredients for a thriving ecosystem could be found in one place, then Thailand’s startup scene would flourish. The result: True Digital Park became the first startup campus in the country and the biggest one in the region.

Photo credit: True Digital Park

At the heart of the park’s inception was the desire to create a place where startups, government bodies, and investors can connect and form relationships.

While it sounds like a good idea, it’s a challenge to design a space that fits the requirements of various parties while still keeping the building’s design cohesive.

That’s where global design and architecture firm Gensler comes in. Its portfolio includes Incheon International Airport and the California headquarters of US software company Adobe. True Corporation tapped the firm to design the park’s interior architecture.

“They actually gave us a challenge to figure out how to connect these three buildings into a single campus,” says Anulak Siwabut, senior design manager at Gensler.

Another issue the firm encountered was the park’s sheer size. “Because it’s such a large space, we had to find a way to bring the scale down a little, but at the same time, build all these connections between the different areas,” Siwabut explains.

Photo credit: Chulawit Santipong and Saguan Wongwitoonwid

Inspired by Bangkok’s design, Gensler focused on the theme “urban connected communities” when they were conceptualizing True Digital Park’s interiors. Similar to how a single city could have different neighborhoods with distinctive personalities, Gensler wanted to connect the communities and entities that would eventually call the park home.

The team set about cutting up the sprawling campus, designating areas for specific functions, and connecting them through a single design language.

“We integrated elements of natural material, warmth, and greenery into the existing infrastructure,” shares Siwabut. “We mixed them all together at the right scale to create a journey for people moving from space to space.”

Centering community

More than hosting startups, investors, and government agencies, the campus will also play landlord to co-working spaces, academies, and some of True Corporation’s entities.

The diversity of the park is thanks in large part to True Corporation CEO Suphachai Chearavanont, whose vision for the space was “a campus for everybody,” according to Siwabut.

This added a layer of complexity for Gensler, as the different parties naturally have varying project goals. How do you create community spaces that encourage people to hang out, collaborate, and discuss, while at the same time ensure that True Digital Park remained profitable?

Gensler and True Corporation found a compromise. They came up with a plan to allocate two buildings for office spaces, which could be properly rented out. The third building would then house a co-working space and community areas that would serve as the “jewel of the campus,” says Ajchara Sothipatanapong, True Digital Park’s space development director.

Photo credit: Chulawit Santipong and Saguan Wongwitoonwid

“I like the concept of connectivity, I believe that it can create the power to push people to make good things,” she shares. “We can make a relationship with someone who is your inspiration. We can create more creativity here.”

With the community spaces, tenants can organize a meeting in the park but also wander in the open spaces, and they get inspired by the design and the people around them. That is, on a bigger scale, the manifesto of True Digital Park: drawing connections between not just Thailand’s startup communities, creators, investors, and government agencies, but also globally.

The park offers meeting areas of all sizes, collaboration and innovation labs, and event spaces. The park goes beyond just work, too. Residential towers, a retail center, and green recreational spaces are all in the books for True Digital Park.

“Anything – you name it – we have it here,” quips Siwabut.

Did you know? Over 90% of the space at True Digital Park is already booked. Phase two of the park is set to be completed by 2022. Contact hello@truedigitalpark.com to be part of this development in the heart of Southeast Asia.