This interview is part of our latest special report on Women and Leadership, which highlights how women are key contributors to the most important stories unfolding in the world today. The conversation has been edited and shortened.
Kotchakorn Voraakhom, 43, is a Thai landscape architect whose firm, Land Processfocuses on social and ecological transformation through projects such as canal gardens, water storage parks and rooftop farms.
You grew up in Bangkok, received your master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and worked for landscape architecture firms in the United States before returning to Bangkok and starting your own firm. Your work combines both international and local perspectives. What is the advantage of this approach?
Responding to climate change is not something generic. We have to tailor every solution to a culture and an environment. Here in Thailand it’s about drought and flooding. This isn’t about melting ice. There are flash floods and floods that continue. There are different patterns in nature. And they are different than before. We have to adapt.
Your designs explore both landscape and water. Can you talk about your connection to both?
I still remember sneaking into the canals as a child and seeing the greenery along them. There was already less and less nature around them, but it was such a beneficial moment for me. My house was a terraced house along the main road. We had no backyard, just the street. The only walks you could do were very hot, very dangerous and very polluted.
Bangkok is built on wetlands and prone to heavy rainfall. What can be done about the frequent flooding?
When my company builds parks, we accept that they will be flooded. Right now, when we build for floods in Thailand, we see it with fear. We build dams higher and higher. This is how you often deal with uncertainty – with fear. With uncertainty you have to deal with flexibility, with understanding. It’s okay to overflow and it’s okay to be ‘weak’. That means resilience. With that attitude you create designs that talk to nature. That dance with nature. It’s very Buddhist – accepting the world as it is.
Your company’s first major project was: Chulalongkorn University Centenary Parkin the center of Bangkok, which you delivered in 2017. Can you talk about that design and how it helps to address flooding, over-development and lack of public space?
It was the city’s first major park in 30 years, and the university built it to celebrate its 100th anniversary. We said it’s not just about celebrating what has been, but helping the city and its citizens survive and prosper in the next 100 years. So let’s try to define a new way of working with water and living in the city.
The whole park tends to collect water. On the one hand you have a series of sloping buildings containing museums, cafes, parking lots and other functions, which we have provided with a green roof. Three underground tanks store the rainwater absorbed by the roof. The land slopes from there to a main lawn and series of wetlands, then continues down to a retention pond. When it rains, excess water from the green roof is filtered through the wetland before flowing into the retention pond, which can double in size.
The concept stems in part from the idea of monkey cheeks. Our previous king [Bhumibol Adulyadej] saw a monkey store his food in his cheeks and then eat it when he is hungry. This is a kind of monkey cheek for water in the city.
This seems like a good example of how you work. You tend to push the boundaries of ideas that are already pushing boundaries.
There are so many things to address when you talk about public space. So if you only have one chance, you want to tackle multiple problems. I don’t think one design can serve just one customer. It should serve the entire city, the entire population, and the entire ecosystem. Design has unexpected customers – the birds and the bees. You serve customers that go way beyond those who pay you.
What are the biggest challenges you face in achieving this?
Change has happened so fast here that it was difficult to adapt. Not so long ago there were ancient cities and rice fields. Then, boom, concrete, big buildings. All this density has happened in the last 50 years. The speed of change has been too fast and many of the reactions have come without direction. That’s why we need professions like urban planning and landscape architecture.
You were co-founder of the Porous city network, discussing ways to naturally mitigate the effects of flooding in Southeast Asia. Explain this effort and its challenges.
Many people do not understand what we are proposing if they are not trained as architects or engineers. They think that if you just build walls and dams, that’s the best solution. As designers, we have powerful tools to create images and animations, to show them what reality will be: the impact of large walls that they will have to live with forever. Do you really want that if it’s only flooded five days a year? We try to convince them that there is another way.
What are some of the challenges of a female designer in Thailand?
My identity is confusing. In Thai culture I am a little bit American, and in American culture I am very Thai. I don’t want gender to become an additional burden.
There are many benefits to being a woman; especially the connection with nature. I think with motherhood, the cycles of the body, we are more in touch with nature in our body and heart.
Another advantage of being a woman is that I’m not afraid of losing face, which makes me feel more flexible. Male stereotypes are so strong. There are fewer expectations for women; you can do whatever you want. You can be yourself.