47th Street Apartments | Doh Eain

On request from the family that has lived in the house for four generations, Doh Eain endeavoured to preserve their 100+ year old heritage home. The owners had been approached by several developers over recent years, offering the family a deal where their house was demolished, a high-rise, ‘modern’ condominium was constructed, and the family would get 1 or 2 units within the new building.

Yangon faces a distinct crisis of built-fabric erasure due to lack of maintenance of heritage properties. With homeowners generally without the required resources to maintain their homes, their only viable option is to sell to local property developers interested only in the demolition of these buildings and the building of new, high-rise condominiums or hotels.

This property is a typical example of the type of architecture that was built in this period. Exterior walls were constructed with thick and beautiful teak sections were used for the internal framing. More common in the later years (1920’s) was the use of steel instead of teak, with steel manufacturers capitalized on the explosive growth of ‘Rangoon’ with their manufacturing of structural elements in the UK and their import into ‘Rangoon’.

Renovations started in May 2017 and were completed in February 2018, and saw the townhouse converted into three high-quality apartments. Now these apartments are generating rentals that are split between the homeowner and Doh Eain for the renovation expenses.