One of the project’s main characteristics of this project is its strong social component and purpose. The project’s prime goal is to help bring awareness of the relevance of working with nature when dealing with flood conditions in Thailand. With this project, this has been achieved through the design of a complete floating village.
One of the main design elements will be the Flood Interpretative Center. This floating structure will be hosting permanent exhibitions, teaching about ecology and learning about how to live with water. The rest of the structures will have different uses, such as commercial, housing, and public park areas.
The adjacent land, encircling the water, plays a fundamental role, transforming the entire site into a small, self sustained, demonstration living eco-system. All plants used on the project will be native: shrubs, trees and wetland vegetation.
Plants have a fundamental role in the project. On one hand, it will be a great opportunity to practically demonstrate the applications of plants in the improvement of water quality, through a combination of horticultural and bioengineering techniques. The other important role of plants on this project is through applied sustainable urban design. We will use native species of trees throughout the project perimeter to provide shade for pedestrians and cyclists. In a wider sense, this project will be an opportunity to show how all these have an effect in the landscape ecology.
Learning about the role and value of native ecological systems and plants is part of the process of influencing society, a step that helps bringing a much needed awareness about ecology and nature in general.
Community gardens will be planted along the proposed pedestrian and bicycle network. These community gardens will play an important role helping the community. A future community garden center will serve as the heart for all neighborhood issues related to urban sustainable living. At the same time, the center will promote and help neighbors, elders and school children to develop their gardening abilities and to promote and develop recycling, composting and a wide range of sustainability related issues.
The process of societal transformation will come through only after years of education and understanding. This project’s primary aims are to contribute to this process of social transformation in Thailand.
The design phase for the project has been approved by the client, the NHA (National Housing Authority of Thailand). The complete design package is currently under way, with construction slated for 2016.
NHA Floating Village | Bangkok Thailand | NHA Floating Village | Bangkok Thailand |SSOCA
Project design team| SSOCA architecture l landscape l planning l research
Principals: Chutayaves Sinthuphan, Ignacio Ortinez & Bryan Cantwell
Architecture team member: Buttriya Ruamthamarak
Images & Text | SSOCA
