Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses

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Subject: City planning × Subject: Growth × Subject: Urbanization ×

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    Steps towards a sustainable Bangkok : reorganizing and retrofitting to mitigate sprawl
    Sidh Sintusingha ( 2004)
    The thesis investigates the application of sustainability principles on a specific "superblock", the expansion unit of Bangkok. The case site is located in the urban fringe northeast of Bangkok and is characterized by the sprawl of leapfrogging developments and concurrent intensification of the urban fabric. The thesis proposes that sprawl and the associated environmental degradation can be arrested and mitigated within the framework of sustainability and the context of the superblock. The thesis begins by investigating the theories of sustainability which provides the basis upon which the case site is selected and the design/planning scenarios are analyzed. The research utilizes the case study approach to investigate the phenomena of contemporary sustainable design practice in Bangkok, combined with the generation of alternative scenarios/futures as a method and design tool to investigate the possibilities for a more sustainable urbanization. Through studies of Bangkok's sprawl, a representation model of the site is generated from which two alternative scenarios are projected-the `business as usual' unmediated change and the more `sustainable' mediated change stressing the central roles of khlong's and open spaces. A preliminary process of "backcasting" then speculates the varying local barriers and contexts to practicing and implementing sustainability. In the tradition of alternative visions of the designed future as major contributions to knowledge, the design/planning process provides an heuristic device as a framework that can inform and potentially assist practitioners, decision makers and stakeholders in navigating, engaging with the complexities and the application of the metanarrative of sustainability at a local level. Through the reorganization and retrofitting of the local urban ingredients and typologies of Bangkok, the thesis demonstrates that sustainability, while providing the generic theoretical framework, should, in practice, be coordinated, incremental and variable-catering to the specific evolutions in the socioeconomic, political, cultural and environmental facets of place