Shophouse Façades on Ratchadamnoen Road in Southern Thailand: A Taxonomic Study to Produce a Dataset for AI modelling

Abstract

Tha Wang, situated in Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand, is a distinctively diverse architectural hub. Beyond its array of historical edifices, it offers clues to an early human settlement. The area's primary artery, Ratchadamnoen Road, is a testament to this architectural diversity, primarily through the varied shophouses lining its path. This research delves into the ornamental relationships on shophouse façades, aiming to deduce specific shophouse characteristics, comprehend the façade patterns along the road, and semantically segment the image by the architectural features. This aims to produce a dataset that can be used as ground truth and input images to be studied by artificial intelligence models.Data was collected from shophouse façades on Ratchadamnoen Road, spanning from Tha Sak Canal to the Wat Wang Tawan intersection. Analysis entailed discerning the shophouse façade characteristics based on ornamental relationships and identifying recurring façade patterns.The study unveiled five distinct shophouse façade types on Ratchadamnoen Road: pre-colonial, post-colonial, eclectic, early modern, and modern. Notably, post-colonial shophouses are predominantly near Tha Sak Canal, transitioning subtly to early modern styles near the Wat Wang Tawan intersection, with the eclectic style sprinkled amidst them. This spatial arrangement suggests that human settlements in this urban expanse has evolved from canal-centric to road-focused, a shift attributed to changing transportation preferences from waterways to roads.