Long before roads and jams became a norm, Bangkok was a city of canals and boats. Water was intrinsic to Thailand’s everyday life where floods were celebrated as renewal, replenishing the soil with sediment.

One could assume then that embracing water again should come easy to Bangkokians. It’s no longer the case: that bond has been dwindling over the years and shaken to its core after the 2011 floods that killed hundreds and displaced thousands across the nation.

And complicating matters, density is an ever-growing strain. Kotch urges planners to restore Bangkok’s water network — especially the many canals that have been covered or degraded over the years — as architects find ways to integrate roof gardens and urban farms to slow stormwater flows, produce food and reduce cooling loads.

The Chulalongkorn Centenary Park lies at the heart of the city of Bangkok (Thailand), creating a much-needed public space and amenity that also serves as a flood mitigation measure.
© VARP Studio

Two scales of action — architectural and urban — often coalesce in the parks LANDPROCESS has designed. For instance, several new buildings with rooftop greenery channel water by gravity from one fringe of the Chulalongkorn University (CU) Centenary Park, all the way to the detention ponds at the other end.

The park has a detention activity lawn that holds water, keeping it from entering the drainage system of the area during storm events.
© LANDPROCESS

Nested within these grounds is a rectilinear green lawn, sloped to act as a flood plain. During storm events, the space fills up, holding water long enough to significantly reduce the load on nearby drains. As the land empties and dries up, it naturally returns to its function as a public space.

The main lawn is another water detention plain that doubles up as a public space and an open-air amphitheatre during dry periods.
© LANDPROCESS

Thammasat University Urban Rooftop Farm (TURF) is another ground-breaking experiment. At the centre of these university premises sits a mound-shaped building with vegetated terraces running down its sides that produce food for the campus year-round. These layered facades can also slow down stormwater and send it to ponds at the base of the building for collection.

Asia’s largest organic rooftop farm, the Thammasat University Rooftop Farm in Bangkok (Thailand) is essentially a building designed as a mound with rice terraces that sits astride water detention ponds.
© LANDPROCESS

As the Thammasat Park shows, designing to perform multiple roles at once is key when hatching up resilient hydrological systems for built-up cities like Bangkok: it is a building, public space, farm, and water detention system, all set into one. Kotch argues that this approach is critical where land use is constrained and landforms must be altered to create new flows.

The terraces are farms that slow down the flow of stormwater and can be accessed as public space.
© Panoramic Studio, LANDPROCESS

Kotchakorn Voraakhom pushes the envelope beyond individual projects. She is a critical voice at home, shaping policy and planning in her native city and country, and an esteemed contributor to several climate initiatives around the globe. She is an engaging speaker who shares her experience and insight with candour.