Bangkok's first significant piece of green infrastructure, Chulalongkorn Centenary Park (CCP), aims to lessen the risk of flooding in the city and other ecological issues. The Park can store up to one million gallons of water during periods of heavy rainfall. The Park is an example of alternative landscape strategies for reducing urban flooding and, a reminder of the city's ability to live alongside water rather than fear it in the face of climate change.
Bangkok is one of the most vulnerable cities to climate change. Rapid growth experienced by the city has left inadequate space for natural rivers, putting the city at risk from increasing sea levels. Parts of Bangkok are already below sea level, and the city is currently sinking two centimeters a year. Climate change and unsustainable growth have put the city's urban and peri-urban areas at jeopardy because of their high density and rising temperatures. With only 3 square meters of public green space/ person, it has the lowest ratio of public green space to population of any megacity.
CCP's creative and resilient climate solution corresponds with the national sustainable urban development plans by increasing the amount of productive green space in the city. For Bangkok, a productive park that can deal with climate change in a long-term way is more vital than simply adding additional green space. CCP provides Bangkok with a glimmer of hope for the city's future while enabling for fresh landscape architecture strategies to take root.
The Park serves as a haven for people of all ages amid the city's concrete jungle. The herb garden, meditation area, reading room, bamboo garden, and playgrounds serve as a communal space for people of all backgrounds to learn, play, and rest. There are few parks in Bangkok that are accessible to individuals with disabilities or wheelchairs.
Public space is reimagined by CCP to serve as a productive nature-based solution to address ecological challenges in the city, beyond recreation. CCP demonstrates how parks can sustainably become an intrinsic part of climate adaptation, serving as a good practice for re-thinking urban and peri-urban spaces.
CCP is the result of the university's and designers' dedication to include all stakeholders in the co-creation process of building a park truly created for the full community. There were numerous public hearings, numerous committee and board meetings, a wide range of people from all walks of life who contributed and exchanged ideas, and finally CCP was born out of this process. CCP considered the economic benefits for the adjacent neighbourhoods as well as the social and environmental impacts it needed to address to achieve sustainable urban growth. The park's visitors and the city's efforts to combat climate change benefit from the activity program that was designed by the park's designers. CCP restores and recreates a climate-resilient and biodiversity-rich environment in the urban context that considers the lifestyles and requirements of urban inhabitants, understanding the ripple effects of a healthy natural ecosystem on society and the economy
CCP offers a recreational area and an outdoor classroom for the university community, the adjacent neighbourhoods, and city people while also helping to combat climate change.
CCP's green roof eliminates heavy metals and other airborne particles by covering its 5,200 square meters with flora. Fine particle pollution is further reduced by the park's 5000 plants, particularly the rain trees with their fine-grained texture leaves. There are 258 natural types of plants and 5,000 forest trees in CCP, which not only provides much-needed green space but is crucial for biodiversity
By absorbing rain and runoff and storing it for future use, the park ensures that no water is wasted. Over a million gallons of stormwater runoff can be collected and re-purposed. The Park is equipped with a detention lawn for treating grey water, three underground rainwater tanks to collect water, four wetlands for gardening, and one retention pond for collecting water. Because of the park's sloping retention lawn, contaminants are removed from the water as it flows down.
While its landscape mechanisms form an entire water management system, its greenery increases urban biodiversity, reduces urban heat islands, and cleans the air of toxic pollutants.
As designers, we have the power to spark public conversation and engagement. As such, it is our responsibility to create an open dialogue between those in need and those in power. We use discussion and negotiation as tools to discover the middle ground as well as the deeper desires of the communities we work with. To ensure that we are designing effective and efficient environment friendly solutions, we need to stop copying and pasting technology without considering the context and instead become more attentive to a locale’s people and ecological systems.
A single park can’t control flooding across an entire city, but this is the first step, and a big, bold one. The Chulalongkorn Centenary Park gives us a spark of aspiration in how we can choose to handle our threatening future while allowing room for newfound landscape architecture potential to emerge. As new challenges present itself, we can only see new opportunities sprung up for us to make a difference and save our sinking home.
Chulalongkorn University Centenary Park – green infrastructure for the city of Bangkok
https://worldlandscapearchitect.com/chulalongkorn-centenary-park-green-infrastructure-for-the-city-of-bangkok/
Published: 14/09/2022