By Rina Chandran
BANGKOK, Jan 9 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – When Bangkok’s oldest university called for ideas for a symbol to mark its centenary year, landscape architect Kotchakorn Voraakhom successfully pitched a design for a park.
It was intended not only as a welcome green space in the middle of the congested city of about 10 million people, but as a place that could also retain large amounts of water, reducing monsoon flooding around Chulalongkorn University.
Parks and “green roofs” planted with vegetation soak up rain during the annual monsoon and help dense urban centres like Bangkok adapt to climate change, Kotchakorn said.
“We need to be thinking about everything we build in the context of mitigating climate-change impact. It can’t be just about aesthetics, but also about serving a purpose,” she said.
“This was Bangkok’s first park in many years, so we had to make it count,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
