Re-envisioning Bangkok’s Hydro and Agro Network

Abstract

As a conjunction of tidal dynamics and rapid urbanization, 340 square kilometers of the derelict aquacultural landscapes on the Chao Phraya Estuary offers a fresh opportunity for a landscape architectural intervention in addressing multiple challenges of urban expansion, decaying ecology, hydrologic fluctuation, freshwater supply, food production and waste. Water is an active agency. Introduction of tidal process is an urban program device that reactivates diverse ecological performances, underpin economics, and drive urban transformation over Bangkok’s intertidal landscape. Creation of levels and hydrologic distributaries aims to engage adaptability to multiple water regimes rather than control or work against it. Bangkok, the city in the monsoon estuary must be soft, absorbent and adaptive. The operative strategies of this project can be applied to the remaining hydro and agro network to build a new landscape infrastructure that performs mixed hydro-ecological functions and responses to environmental shifts in diverse range of times and spatial scales.

Keywords

Estuary / Dynamics / Fluidity / Level / Operation

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2014 Higher Education Press