Happy Nice Mall

This interview is part of our last interview. Women and Leadership special reportIt highlights the women who have made significant contributions to the great stories unfolding in the world today. Speech edited and shortened.

Kotchorn Voraakhom, 43, is a landscape architect whose firm is from Thailand. land processIt focuses on social and environmental transformation with projects such as canal gardens, water storage parks and roof farms.

You grew up in Bangkok, earned a master’s degree from the Harvard Institute of Design, and worked for landscape architecture firms in the United States before returning to Bangkok and founding your own firm. Your work combines both international and local perspectives. What is the advantage of this approach?

Reacting to climate change is not common. We need to adapt each solution to a culture and environment. Here it is about drought and flooding in Thailand. It’s not about the ice melting. There are flash floods and permanent floods. Nature has different patterns. And they are different from before. We need to adapt.

Your designs explore both the landscape and the water. Can you tell us about your connection to both?

I still remember sneaking into canals as a kid and seeing greenery along the canal. There was less and less nature around them anyway, but it was a very healing moment for me. My house was a row house on the main road. We didn’t have a backyard, just the street. The only walks you could take were very hot, very dangerous and very dirty.

Bangkok is built on wetlands and is prone to heavy rains. What can be done about frequent flooding?

We accept that when my firm builds parks, they will be flooded. We see this with fear when we are currently building for flooding in Thailand. We build higher and higher dams. This is how you often deal with uncertainty – fear. You have to deal with uncertainty with flexibility, with understanding. It’s okay to overflow, and it’s okay to be “thin”. This means endurance. With this mindset, you create designs that speak to nature. That dance with nature. Very Buddhist – accepting the world as it is.

Your company’s first major project Chulalongkorn University Centennial ParkIn the center of Bangkok, which you completed in 2017. Can you talk about this design and how it has helped address flooding, overdevelopment and a lack of public space?

It was the city’s first major park in 30 years, and the university built it to celebrate its 100th anniversary. We said it’s not just about celebrating what’s happened, but about helping the city and its citizens survive and thrive over the next 100 years. So, let’s try to describe a new way of working with water and living in the city.

The whole park tends to collect water. At one end is a series of sloping buildings that we have equipped with green roofs, containing museums, cafes, parking lots and other functions. Three underground tanks store rainwater absorbed by the roof. From there the land slopes down to a main lawn and a series of wetlands, and then continues to a holding pond. When it rains, excess water from the green roof is drained by the wetland, then flows into the holding pond, which can double.

The concept comes in part from the idea of ​​monkey cheeks. our previous king [Bhumibol Adulyadej] He saw a monkey hide its food in its cheeks and eat it when hungry. This is a kind of monkey cheek for water in the city.

This seems like a good example of how you work. You tend to push the boundaries of ideas that are already pushing the boundaries.

There is a lot to consider when talking about the public sphere. So if you have a chance, you want to fix a few problems. I don’t think a design can only serve one customer. It has to serve the entire city, the entire population, and the entire ecosystem. The design is to have unexpected customers – birds and bees. You serve customers far beyond those who pay you.

What are the biggest challenges you face in achieving this?

Change has happened so fast here that it has been difficult to adapt. Not long ago there were ancient cities and rice fields. Then boom, concrete, big buildings. All this intensity has happened in the last 50 years. The pace of change has been very rapid, and most of the reactions have been directionless. That’s why we need professions such as urbanism and landscape architecture.

you partnered Porous City NetworkAddressing ways to naturally mitigate the effects of flooding in Southeast Asia . Describe this effort and its challenges.

Many people who are not trained as architects or engineers do not understand what we are proposing. They just think that building walls and dams is the best solution. As designers, we have powerful tools to create images and animations to show them what reality will be – the effects of great walls that they will have to live with forever. Do you really want that when you only have five days a year overflowing? We try to convince them that there is another way.

What are the challenges of being a female designer in Thailand?

My identity is confusing. I am somewhat American in Thai culture and very Thai in American culture. I don’t want sex to be another burden.

Being a woman has many benefits; especially the connection with nature. I think with motherhood, we are more in touch with nature in our bodies and hearts, with the cycles of the body.

Another benefit of being a woman is that I am not afraid of losing my face and therefore I feel more flexible. Male stereotypes are very strong. There are fewer expectations for women; you can do whatever you want. You can be yourself.