The project is a cautionary Tale of a new Water Parliament in Bangkok city that embraces sea level rise and values it as an opportunity, using 3 integrated water infrastructure as an urban redevelopment toolkit that brings back Traditional Thai Water Culture.

“Bangkok has long been known as the “Venice of the East” for its extensive network of canals. Building on soft clay and over-extraction of groundwater, according to some estimates, parts of Bangkok are sinking by two centimetres annually, and if nothing has been done, the whole city will be submerged by water completely in 2100. Water which used to be a sacred element that brings lives and civilization is now threatening the survival of Thai people as well as the unifying spirit of the country.”

The thesis is built around a fictional realm of the inhabitable landscape of Bangkok city in the year 2100 where a new Water Parliament is situated at the ancient Rattanakosin Island that pertained to the commons of water and subjected to the groups of people living in the island that represents the culture and people of the Thai city. It celebrates a different aspect of water and engages the traditional Thai water culture with more advanced technology and infrastructures. It also explores the potential of using water to allow the Thai people to adapt their life to this ground changes as the sea water rises. Using a new water culture to demonstrate that the environmental crisis of sea-level rise is potentially a new opportunity for them to reshape the city and the power of this organic growth is given back to the resident through their participation in the redevelopment of the city.
As the water is slowly rising and affecting the daily life of the locals, the speculation scenario is set in context where most of the low-rise buildings along the Chao Phraya river edges are submerged by water. Overall, the Water Parliament works on 3 architectural strategies that allow the return of the ancient Rattanakosin Island in 2100, and the 3 alternative water infrastructure are the Spiritual Embankment, the Inhabitable Scaffold, and the Mangrove Lagoon.

Spiritual Embankment is a ring of defence that is around the ancient and historic monuments to keep them as they are when the sea level rises. It enhances the sacredness of these temples with aqua healing functions that allows the visitors to be spiritually enlightened. There will be a series of purification ponds, bathhouse and communal dining, food hall, massage parlor, and market with boat docking platform facilities that help to collect and store rainwater.

Inhabitable Scaffold is a series of scaffold structures that are activated as inhabitable space when the flood goes up. It facilitates a new business opportunity for the local Thai where the existing infrastructures near the monuments are adapted with new aquatic functions. The 3 stages of infrastructure growth will be carried out over the year to facilitate the future living with water where the rainwater will be harvested using the water funnel roof as the resource.

Mangrove Lagoon is a line of coastal defenses that sits at the edge of the old river system of Rattanakosin Island. It uses mangroves to activate an aquaculture living and new form of ecotourism on the island of Bangkok city. This reconnection with water also allows some of the locally-owned Mangrove Floating Apartment to be used as an eco-chalet for tourists or a floating market for locals to sell their stuff there.

The 3 design booklets are designed with water infrastructure guidelines that will be given out to the locals and educate them on the various benefits of water and how it can become a space-making material. Each of these manuals also summarize what environmental challenges that the locals will be facing by living at the different locations across the whole island and how they are going to adapt their life through the participation of building infrastructure that can safeguard their own property and cultural identity.

What if the Thai people decided to embrace rising sea levels and turn water into a celebration element that continues serving them?

In conclusion, the artworks are part of the visual representations that suggest a distant reminiscence of the Thai Mural Painting. The various narrative scenes in these artworks are scattered around a larger environment which tends to communicate a more global idea on the characteristics of this new Thai city in 2100. Even though the three inhabitable infrastructures are being designed individually, they all existed as one, and the presence of water in this new wet city that the Thai people are celebrating binds the whole island together and establishes the water parliament.

The project was developed at the National University of Singapore.

KOOZ What prompted the project?

TL Religious culture is considered an essential pillar of Thai tradition and rooted in its society. It is not only the major moral force of Thai family and community but also contributing to the individualistic and tolerant behaviour of people for many centuries. Today, Thai society portrays the harmonious combination of three belief systems: Animism, Hinduism, and Buddhism in which the Thai people are becoming an instinctive self as they are always subjected to higher power governance and dominance because of the belief in deities over their true selves. On the other hand, religious rituals and festival celebrations have also made the water culture become a vital part of most of the Thai people’s life. It is the Thai tradition that the Thai people live with water by the canal in the traditional hometown because of its rich cultural and religious traditions that often acts as the magnet for the unity of its people. However, with climate change and rising sea levels, water which used to be a sacred element that brings lives and civilization is now threatening the survival of Thai people as well as the unifying spirit of the country. With the Thai culture as something that I am always fascinated by, I would like to take this opportunity to question and investigate to reimagine how the cultural evolution on the symbolism of religious belief and adaptive use of water can transform Bangkok from a sin-city into a water parliament where every Bangkokians participate in a redevelopment of the city.

KOOZ What questions does the project raise and which does it address?

TL Global Sea Level rise is always projected 100 years in advance which is very different from normal future planning due to the small noticeable changes within a short period of time. Many of the research studies that are done are still at the very speculative norms in which it could possibly be fictitious that the sea level rise might not rise to the expected level in years to come. Therefore, the thesis is projected to use the worst-case scenario of the sea level rise in Bangkok to speculate an alternative reality of the city to bring awareness and causing its residents to re-look at these environmental threats differently. Instead of being scared, it encourages the locals to accept, stay put and turn it into an opportunity to recreate their future living. It will be done with design guidelines on different types of water urbanism, enabling the participatory self-empowerment of its citizen during the redevelopment of the city and learning how to build their own home to ensure the housing, job and food security in the future.

KOOZ What drew you to explore Bangkok and 2100 as sites?

TL I always find Bangkok as a chaotic country. It is a city that is full of contradiction and as part of the thesis inquiry, I would like to speculate on a fictional reality of Bangkok as a cautionary tale to bring awareness on how the city can embrace climate change and adapt its life. As water is very peculiar to the Thai people which I think it will be most appropriate to investigate the transparency of this water urbanism and how it can continue to unfold and play out the liveliness of the city, making it a more maximum city while achieving sustainability in the projected year where the sea level rises in 2100 and submerged the whole island.

KOOZ How does the project approach the role of architecture within our contemporary and evolving climate crisis?

TL Similarly to how the Thai people are believing in their own Thai folklore, the project aims to define the role of architecture as an educational urban tools to examine on the transformation of political culture, environment, and society of Bangkok towards urban resilience and deep sustainability. It aims to take the history of Angkor Wat as a reference and reimagine a fictional reality of Bang¬kok just like how Italo Calvino wrote the mirror city of Valdrada, in his Invisible Cities to describe a fictional city of Venice.

It is a cautionary tale of embracing rising sea levels as a resource for enculturation as it propos-es the existing condition and impact of the social, political, and environmental phenomenon in Bangkok as opportunities to redevelop the city with 3 integrated water infrastructures as the urban toolkits that brings back the traditional Thai Water Culture. This cultural profile shall also portray a new form of faith, hope, fidelity, and charity, strengthening the political culture and the unity of the country.

KOOZ How does one define resilience in architecture nowadays?

TL To me, the resilience in architecture is about creating something that has an innate quality of adaptability. As the world is constantly changing everyday in which the idea that we have now might not be relevant in the future. Therefore, we must always look ahead and speculate every possibility on the strategies that can enhance the ability of the architecture and community to both prevent the damage and to recover from damage.
Afterall, resilience also means designing adaptive infrastructure that can grow from the existing environment and engage the people directly in design to create strong and comprehensive design that will help to sustain their own life even in the face of any future disaster.

KOOZ What are for you the greatest opportunities which can arise from thinking of architecture as an active agent resisting and fighting climate change?

TL I always believe that architecture is not only limited to just solid form and spaces, and it can possibly be any inhabitable infrastructure and landscape that arises from all the different elements on earth.
Specifically, The Water Parliament in this project will facilitate the transformation of Bangkok into a people city that establishes the new water urbanism and focusing on protecting themselves against environmental challenges as well as allowing the evolution of social and political institutions in the country.

It investigates on the various potential of using water as an urban design toolkit to facilitate the social and environmental well-being of the local Thai people, allowing them to adapt their life to this ground changes as the sea water rises. This new water culture will also be adopted to demonstrate that the environmental crisis of global sea-level rise is potentially a new opportunity for them to reshape the city and the power of this organic growth is given back to the resident through their participation in building the Water Parliament.

KOOZ What is the power of the architectural imagination?

TL I think the power of the architectural imagination is that it does not mean to promise a “happy-ever-after Bangkok city” with absolute resiliency, but still enable to bring awareness about social, environmental, and political conditions of the country and how can the adaptive use of water and the community spirit of embracing the sea level rise be valued as an opportunity to re-appropriate all these issues.

Besides that, the illustrative drawings also have the power to suggest a distance reminiscence of the Thai Mural Painting that allows different scenes of stories and locations to co-exist in the same space with the same language. These various narrative scenes are scattered around a larger environment which tends to communicate a more global idea of the characteristics of this new Thai city in 2100.

Bio

Tyler is an Architectural Designer who aspires to become an Architect in the future. Designing and planning for the future built environment has always been his motivation and goals that keep him pursuing this field. With future opportunities given, Tyler believes that he can make a change in the world that we are living in right now.