The project was initiated by Chabad of Thailand in collaboration with designer Ariel Rabi.

Pai is a small town in northern Thailand, in Mae Hong Son Province, set within a verdant valley surrounded by mountains, forests, and rice fields. Its landscape the mist that often settles over the mountains, the river, hot springs, and tranquil rural atmosphere has gradually transformed Pai from a relatively isolated area into one of the most beloved destinations for backpackers and young travelers from around the world, including a significant number of Israelis.

For Israeli travelers, Pai has become an almost natural stop on a journey through northern Thailand: a place where the pace slows, where visitors often remain longer than they originally intended, and where paths repeatedly cross with fellow travelers. This growing presence led Chabad of Thailand to establish a temporary Chabad House in Pai in 2019.

When we were commissioned to design the permanent complex, we deliberately chose not to create a smaller version of the large Chabad Houses found in the urban centers of Bangkok, Phuket, and Chiang Mai. Pai called for a different architectural language—one rooted in its particular character and setting. 

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The aim was to create a place that would offer Jewish and Israeli travelers a familiar point of reference: a home for prayer and study, Shabbat and holiday meals, kosher food, a shop for essential products, a mikveh, assistance for travelers, and above all, a place to meet, rest, and feel, even briefly, at home.

The central concept was therefore to create a Chabad House that truly belongs to Pai: a complex with a local, rural, and open character, integrated into the mountainous landscape and tropical vegetation rather than competing with them.

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Instead of a large, monolithic urban building, we proposed breaking the program into a series of smaller volumes and structures arranged around courtyards, gardens, terraces, and a network of open and covered passageways creating the atmosphere of a small village embedded within the landscape.

Within this fabric, the full range of functions was incorporated: a synagogue and women’s gallery, a dairy restaurant and kosher grocery shop, a meat restaurant, an event hall and event tent, a women’s mikveh, kindergarten, the emissaries’ residence, offices, a study room, accommodation for yeshiva students, and a dedicated travelers’ lounge.

In this way, our intention was not simply to create a Chabad House in Pai, but rather a place that expresses the distinctive encounter between the Jewish and Israeli sense of home and the serenity, simplicity, and natural beauty of northern Thailand.