The Thai Metal Trade Knowledge Center is a seminar venue for TMT, one of the main steel manufacturers in Thailand, and an education center for the public, architects and engineers, to learn about steel products, materials and production.

Four buildings designed to accommodate the entire program which includes a lobby, seminar rooms, career services, an oversized meeting room, three seminar rooms, offices and parking. The first building houses the meeting and seminar rooms, the second houses the offices, the third is given over for the general public while the last is for services. These four buildings are arranged around a central water feature that helps reduce the interior space and the need mechanical ventilation.

The buildings are grouped to the east of the site, preserving a large green area to the west for future expansion. The project owner, with his great appreciation for art, wanted the building complex to stand as a work of art in its own right. Following this directive, wood-patterned aluminum composite panels were selected to emphasize the curved form of the auditorium. By night, when the meeting rooms are beautifully lit, the suspended art work in the foyer becomes even more spectacular.

Steel was used, whenever possible, as the primary building material in order to reflect TMT business. Many of the materials used were TMT products, including the metal roof structure, metal cladding and metal decking. Glass was selected to compliment the steel structure and to communicate a contemporary architectural language. All four buildings use structural steel framing with reinforced concrete slabs at ground level and reinforced concrete over metal deck on the upper level. All the steel framing for the project was prefabricated on site and then assembled using nut and bolt connections.

Metal cladding and aluminum composite panels with a wood pattern are used for the walls in the main meeting room. Steel painted doors are mounted in powder-coated aluminum frames. With the decision to expose the building services and use an open ceiling design, a lot of input was required from the contractor in order to create high-level shop drawings prior to construction. The short time-frame for construction also influenced the decision to develop a system of prefabricating the principal structural frame; while work on the ground was still progressing, assembly of the steel structure could begin, thus saving a significant amount of time usually spent on structural preparation.