BY JAMES TRULOVE / PHOTOGRAPHY BY RUNGKIT CHAROENWAT
Landscape Architects of Bangkok has reforested a speck of the Thai capital. The cobras seem to approve.
FROM THE MAY 2017 ISSUE OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE.
It would not be a stretch to think of this reforestation project as a ?vest-pocket? park, much in the tradition of the work of the noted landscape architect Robert Zion in New York City. After all, the name of the project, ?Metro-Forest,? might suggest as much. Though it is not bounded on all sides by encroaching office towers, this five-acre landscape rests squarely in the midst of equally inhospitable and unchecked suburban sprawl dotted by illegal dump sites (of which this was once one), a tangle of expressways and surface roads, and the din of more than 800 planes landing and departing nearby every day at Suvarnabhumi Airport, which serves Bangkok. Certainly many of the design elements of a vest-pocket park are present: a water feature to mask the clamor of planes and cars, native plants that recall a bygone era, seating to contemplate the surrounding nature, hardscape to create boundaries, and a carefully designed network of berms that increase the overall planting area of this small space while blocking views of the surroundings. The project, which won a 2016 ASLA Professional Honor Award for General Design, is an oasis, but also much more. It has also become an important laboratory for exploring ways to create a diverse forest ecology. It employs plantin...