Day 6: Sense of Place

Today was another day spent meeting Bangkok's urban professionals. We visited the City Planning Department of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA), which plays a similar role in Bangkok as the Urban Redevelopment Authority in Singapore. However, the BMA portrayed a much less sophisticated image than the URA, which is also reflecting in its city planning.

Our hosts for the morning were Ms. Anchalee Patamasawan, Director General of the Department of City Planning; Assistant Professor Bhubate Samutachak, Director of the Green Development Institution; and Mr. Sompong Chirabundarnsook, Chief of Western area development planning sub-division, Urban Development Planning Division.

Placed at our conference table seats were maps of the metropolitan region. I asked one of the Thai students to show me where the office was. He had a difficult time finding it. Evidently, very few Bangkok students use maps and rely more on monuments to move around the city. My direction-finding abilities are functioning more poorly in Bangkok than in Singapore, too. I think it's because of Bangkok's size and limited subway system, which helps me orient myself. If I or the Thai students were to draw a map of the city, I'm fairly sure that we would all be off.

Mr. Chirabundarsnook gave us another lecture about Bangkok's development history. The fact that Bangkok's urban planning is so young stood out once again. The city's first comprehensive plan was in 1992. That's only about 15 years ago, but the city has been around for much longer. And the plan is basically a land use plan of rings drawn around the city center, which was most likely not adhered to. The current city plan only planned up to 2022, which many might argue is not far enough into the future. This notion of focusing on present needs, not worrying about the future, and reacting to problems instead of preparing for them seems to be a general trend in Bangkok planning. It's probably related to the city and country's political instability. Why would investment be made in city planning if there is very little guarantee that it will be implemented due to political changes?

Mr. Chirabundarsnook also talked about subcenters, which are self-contained communities outside of the city center. These are satellite cities that combine living and working outside of the city so that people don't need to live in Bangkok. The idea is not new, and for our activity with the BMA we worked in groups to create a strategy/objectives, implementation plan, and risk assessment for new subcenters.

My group laid out subcenter objectives that were similar to the BMA's: controlled urban growth (population and urban growth are not bad, but how growth occurs could be), sustainable development, and based upon the live-work model. However, we wanted to make sure that the city center was also being supported while the subcenters received most of the attention and investment. Our implementation included support from the government and the private sector. In all stages of implementation, the government provides economic benefits to entice the businesses to settle in the suburb or to entice people to move out there. The major risks (out of many) are political instability, lack of a government budget, and the lack of a market for businesses.

The BMA hosted lunch, during which I had an interesting discussion with some of the Thai students. One reason they took the class was to get an insider's look at their city, which they don't know too much about. Apparently, Bangkok city planning lacks transparency. The government controls the media. The information they heard in the morning was all new to them, too (this may also be because they're in a different academic discipline; perhaps the architecture/planning students know more about city?).

Our next stop was the Baiyoke Sky Hotel, the tallest building in Bangkok and the tallest reinforced concrete building in the world, since nobody builds with reinforced concrete anymore. It is 88 stories tall. The view is great. Seeing the juxtaposition of the CBD's high-rise buildings next to low-rise homes helped me better understand the city's built form. Bangkok's sprawl was evident - from the top deck, the city looked like a sea of buildings. Also interesting was the number of large, empty, deteriorating buildings that have been that way since Thailand's 1997 financial crisis.

We went back to the Emporium Mall to see the Thailand Creative & Design Center (TCDC). This consists of a library with design-oriented books, computers (so many Macs), a special exhibit about materials (increases my appreciation of course 3), a members-only lounge (comfy), and exhibits on design (interesting). There was also a special exhibit about Thai modern architecture, which, well, wasn't very "modern" at all, compared to what we've seen in other cities like Singapore. Architecture in Thailand just seems to copy buildings of the West.

We students had dinner at the mall, and some of us went to the Swalum Night Bazaar, a night market near the Lumphini MRT station. These crowded rows of shops sold clothes, bags, some small appliances, some food, and of course, Thai massages.