Baan Kang Wat

This guide to Baan Kang Wat in Chiang Mai follows a ceramicist named Nattawut Ruckprasit, known as Big, who around 2009 dreamed up a craft village to rebuild the close-knit neighborhood feeling of his own upbringing for artists being priced out of city life. It covers the three years he spent waiting before construction began, and the unusual rule he set once it did: craftspeople had to live on site for their first three years, hand-picked by Big himself. Listen for how that requirement shaped the teak houses beside Wat Umong's old monastery grounds.