By Kerrie Butts and Nilay Mistry
for S.L.U.M. LAB Magazine Edition 7 Spring 2012
Summary
The recent flooding in Thailand exemplifies how assertions of control in a context of rapid ecological, economic, and social change have reached their limit of plausibility. Bangkok, like many low-lying coastal megacities in Asia, is at risk to future ramifications of climate change. Those living in informal settlements are most vulnerable to the effect of natural and manmade disasters, which calls for new strategies for resilience.
Introduction
Thirteen percent of the world population resides in low-lying coastal cities, with thirteen of the twentieth largest cities located in at-risk coastal areas. These metropolitan regions serve as vital economic centers for some of the most densely populated regions on the planet and are the most vulnerable to the future effects of climate change. This decade has witnessed an increase in the intensity and frequency of the extremes of flood and drought. In 2011, above-average rainfall in Southeast Asia led to major flooding in Cambodia, Laos, Philippines and Thailand affecting more than 8 million people1. The devastation from the recent flooding of the Chao Phraya River and neighboring watersheds has brought to international attention the desperate need for coordinated water management practices throughout Thailand and across political borders. Global sea level rise and localized land subsidence amplify the perils to Bangkok metropolitan area and surrounding infrastructure. Although the immense scale of the inundation impacts all income levels, the poor are the most directly and severely affected by these flood disasters. Individuals living in dense poor communities are twice as likely to experience the hardship of future flooding which often last for periods of one week to over a month2. Residents of the informal settlements in these at-risk zones suffer the most during calamity due to, in part, insufficient emergency support systems and disruption to household income streams.
Watery Ground
Urbanization has led to the paving over of natural waterways and introduction of large amounts of impervious surfaces in Bangkok. Rigid infrastructure systems and modern settlement patterns in the region have neglected traditionally respected rhythms of the annual rainy season and ensuing swelling of the Chao Phraya River. Since the nineteenth century, there has been a shift in Thailand from a cyclical relationship with nature to imported values of control and dominance. Foreign-trained Siamese and European master builders sought to remake Bangkok through the promotion of land use separation and engineering solutions to exert dominance over natural cycles3. The recent flooding in Thailand exemplifies how assertions of control amid rapid ecological, economic, and social change have reached their limit of plausibility. Longstanding political differences also heighten disparity between rural and urban settlements regarding water diversion and natural disaster response. Challenges arise in predicting and quantifying the impact of a fifty-year flood event in a context of rapid change when the city has transformed drastically the span of a few decades. Future mitigation plans must embrace resilient and flexible strategies.
Bangkok and its surrounding heavily industrialized districts in the central delta form a sprawling megalopolis of 20 million people. It is by far the largest urbanized area in Thailand and the backbone of the national economy. Little enforceable regulations dictate what is built where leading to a built environment that is largely shaped by capital forces. This raises issues of social and environmental justice and questions of the long-term sustainability of Bangkok. The pumping of below ground aquifers to supply the growing region with water cause land subsidence at a rate of 25 cm per year while rising sea levels continue to eat away at the coastline. Household waste flowing directly into the public waterways produces quality of life and health concerns. Poor water quality shifts patterns of circulation and orientation away from the canals, creating a back-of-house condition along waterways that were once major thoroughfares. In Bangkok, informal communities often concentrate around canals as well as railways, and public right of ways or unused lots.
In many cases, slum dwellers have been successful to negotiate with landowners to create land-sharing agreements and secure tenure. Community Organization Development Institute (CODI) is an independent public organization that coordinated with city, municipal agencies, NGOs, and community networks. It manages government subsidies for community upgrading and oversees the Baan Mankong “secure housing” program. CODI has currently improved conditions in 1,546 settlements in 277 cities. Bang Bua is the first canal-wide community-upgrading project in Bangkok involving a network of 12 squatter communities living along a 13-kilometer stretch of the Bang Bua canal. The community network began with collective efforts to clean the polluted canal water by removing trash and selling the salvageable material to support further upgrades. Household septic systems and grease traps were installed to preserve the waterway. The residents were able to negotiate a thirty-year land lease from the Treasury Department who owns the property. Small self-organized groups manage the savings program, ongoing re-blocking and new home construction with the assistance of governmental and university groups5. Homes that backed the canal were relocated to provide a shared public waterway. Despite upgrading to the housing stock, communities like Bang Bua are still vulnerable to flooding due to proximity to the canal. During the extensive flooding in 2011, the flow of water from northern districts deposited new waste into the canal and between housing units. Most of the homes received 30-50 centimeters of floodwater in 2011, during which many of the residents were driven to relocate to the second floor of structures.
Khlong Toei Social History
Flat, wet, and located at the end of multiple urban canals, Khlong Toei illustrates the problems of Bangkok amplified. An estimated 80,000-100,000 residents live on 1.5 sq km of swampy low-lying land owned by the Port Authority of Thailand. Many families have been living on the site for four to five decades. The Khlong Toei community operates its own schools, volunteer fire department and medical clinics. Land tenure under Thai laws allow limited rights to squatters on public land, most houses have basic amenities such as running water and electricity. Waste management and stormwater, both runoff and septic, remain ongoing problems.
Despite the long-standing presence on the site and being the closest possible source of labor for the port, there is lack of future certainty of port the community’s stake to the land. Deep-sea ports and industrial activities relocated east of Bangkok so the Khlong Toei port has lost importance in recent years. Rumors of port privatization would allow high rise development to push people off of this land. There is a need for alternative forms of income since local laborers cannot rely primarily on the port for steady employment and a necessity to strengthen additional industries for alternative forms of income generation. With the context of land tenure and land sharing, how can architectural proposals meet the needs of formal and informal sectors?
Adaptation
In times of crisis, Thailand’s citizens display inventiveness and adaptation while communities work together to survive. Designers and academic institutions need to respond with similar vigor. With the issues of sea level rise, extreme weather, and political instability facing Thailand in the 21st century, new models of architecture interventions need to question existing typologies, in order to maintain long term contributions to the city. Unfinished relics from past real estate booms loom near cranes assembling a new generation of single use generic condominiums and globally franchised retail outlets. Increased development of condo projects within Bangkok isolated themselves from the dynamic and sentient qualities of the common Bangkok street. Long-standing as well as recently formed informal settlements within Thailand exemplify adaption and ingenuity to maintain survival through a variety of socio-economic cycles. Located in relationship to a catalog of public infrastructures and land uses within Thailand, can attributes of informal settlements be enhanced to improve their interface with the formal city? Large-scale governmental efforts to reroute water from the northern watershed around Bangkok while citizens use sandbags, masonry walls, and sheet plastic to seal off their homes and automobiles. Blocking floodwaters at these varied scales is a temporary solution. New landscapes of occupation must manage water with site-specific strategies that will in turn alter the engagement people have with natural flux.
During the Fall 2011 semester, the International Program in Design and Architecture (INDA) at Chulalongkorn University collaborated with ETH Zurich to investigate urban transformations in Khlong Toei, Bangkok. The INDA studio taught by Kerrie Butts and Nilay Mistry employed analysis of the conditions surrounding informal urbanism in Thailand and proposes architectural projects exploring flexibility, adaptation and transformation. Reacting to those conditions in Khlong Toei area is part of their ongoing research on informal urbanism in Bangkok. Successful architecture and interventions within the urban context often rely on facilitating a multitude of programs, users, and infrastructures at varying timescales. INDA student work included in this publication addresses issues of waste management, water processes and the barrier between the port and the adjacent population. Recognizing the cycles, networks and systems of the city create conditions for sustainable design from economic, natural and social perspectives.
Sources
1. OCHA. Southeast Asia: Flooding (as of 13 October 2011). < http://ochaonline.un.org/Default.aspx?alias=ochaonline.un.org/roap> (January 12, 2012).
2. The World Bank, Climate Risk and Adaption in Asian Coastal Megacities: A Synthesis Report. (Washington, DC: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 2010), p. 30.
3. Povatong, Pirasri, Building Siwilai : Transformation of Architecture and Architectural Pricetice in Siam during the Reign of Rama V, 1868 - 1910. Doctorial Thesis, University of Michigan, 2011.
4. Shlomo Angel and Somsook Boonyabancha, “Land Sharing as an Alternative to Eviction” In Third World Planning Review, 10 (2) 1988.
5. For a more detailed description of CODI, Baan Mankong, and Bang Bua community upgrading, see www.codi.or.th.