DISPATCH GLOBAL URBANISM STUDIO
SAM FOX S C HOO L OF D E S I G N & V I S U A L A RTS | WA S H I N GTO N U N I V E R S I T Y I N S T. LO U I S • I S S U E 0 2
GLOBAL URBANISM STUDIO
Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts
Sink or Swim
Note from the Chair Linda C. Samuels Professor and Chair, Urban Design Director of Sustainable Design and Environmental Justice “Sink or swim” is a phrase often summoned in a moment of crisis where fast action is necessary to survive. In addition to immediacy, it also has a tinge of self-reliance: No one will save us – we must save ourselves or perish. There is perhaps no more appropriate sentiment for the world we find ourselves in today, a world of urgency and interdependence, where public budgets are strapped and too many government agents under-prioritize – or even disbelieve – the scale of impact to come. In the last few months alone, the U.S. has seen catastrophic flooding in unexpected places and conflagrations that dwarf coastal fires of previous generations. In both instances – and dozens of others – insurance providers have preemptively canceled policies, leaving residents stranded after decades of premium payments, and city agency responses have come up far short. Communities, non-profits, activists, designers, artists – these folks rise to the challenge and fill in the gaps where they can, how they can. The Sam Fox School’s Global Urbanism Studio (the final semester of the Master of Urban Design degree) engages cities in the perpetual slow crises of long-term climate change, guided by our partners and local experts who live in these conditions and as part of the communities we visit and engage. For the past three years, we have had the great pleasure of collaborating with landscape architecture and urban design firm LandProcess,
based in Bangkok, Thailand. Founder and director Kotchakorn “Kotch” Voraakhom and design director Sajjapongs “Pom” Lekuthai are integral to the summer experience, sharing their spectacular green infrastructure and public space work with our students and facilitating connections with government agencies, academics, and people – shrimp farmers, water experts, residents, and others. Beyond the exposure to impressive and consequential work, designed, as their website says, “to shift cities to a carbon neutral future and confront…climate uncertainty,” the summer studio is defined by an experience of authenticity. This is the benefit of embedded travel abroad: not just to see a place as a tourist, but as Kotch says in the following pages, to be awake in a new place, to question deeply why it is the way it is. No doubt, the topics the students tackle are daunting. Bangkok is sinking, sea level is rising, development is happening – all of which together add up to a seemingly intractable condition for 15 million people. Our students go deep into these complexities, investigating zoning policies, histories of tidal flow, the impacts of land cover and impermeability, the importance of infrastructure. The projects found in the pages that follow grapple with the role and responsibility designers have to mediate between this evolving terra viscus and the very real needs of people. Unlike a formal book, which can be slow to form, this dispatch is intended as a report from the front lines, a combination of on-the-ground observations, interviews with partners, and student responses. This edition tracks not only the work in Bangkok, but the many places we visit in addition – Shanghai, Cambodia, Angkor Wat, and the Mississippi River – that serve as comparative
STITELMAN HOEFERLIN SAMUELS BERNSTINE VORAAKHOM LEKUTHAI THAITAKOO KIM NILAPORNKUN
conditions. These are deltaic places, helping us to see where Bangkok has been and project where it could go next. At the same time, this patchwork of places reminds us of the globe’s interconnectivity, how systems of commerce, transportation, energy, and heat are interwoven and interdependent, and that the world’s common denominator is humanity. Regardless of the language, the food, the clothing, the religion, we all hope to save this planet and continue to occupy it together.
Contents Note from the Chair. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Note from the Coordinator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 In Conversation: Mississippi River Common Ground . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 David Waggonner, Derek Hoeferlin, and Jonathan Stitelman In Conversation: Southeast Asian Pasts and Futures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Kotchakorn Voraakhom and Jonathan Stitelman Bang Khun Thian: A Microcosm of Bangkok . . . . . 8 Student Projects: Policy, Tidal Flow, Islands . . . . . . . 9 Main Focus: Climate Vulnerability. . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Centerfold: Global Temperature Change. . . . . . . . 14 Main Focus: Learning From Context . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Student Projects: Landcover. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Student Projects: Spirit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Student Projects: Power and Authority. . . . . . . . . . 23 Student Projects: Commons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Acknowledgments and Future Plans. . . . . . . . . . . . 28
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