Speaker 1: We assume that and Co will be able to enlarge
Speaker 1: its capacity to our greed.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: We want more people, we want more buildings, we want
Speaker 1: more economics, we want more tourists, and we assume that
Speaker 1: bank can handle it. Whereas the line itself, every line
Speaker 1: or every infrastructure is haves its capacity, and we also
Speaker 1: destroy the natural infrastructure to reduce its capacity without knowing.
Speaker 2: Greetings, I'm Chris Turny and this is Unfucking the future,
Speaker 2: and together with you, I'm here sorting through this maze
Speaker 2: of environmental challenges we're facing. It's easy to feel paralyzed
Speaker 2: by the climate crisis, but action is at the heart
Speaker 2: of this show. I'm Fucking the Future celebrates the remarkable
Speaker 2: individual who are paving the way for a better future
Speaker 2: and learning how we too can make a difference. Let's
Speaker 2: dive in Fucking the future. Weird a fucking the future.
Speaker 2: When you think of a climate crisis, what do you
Speaker 2: think of? For a long time, the image of climate
Speaker 2: change was that lone polar bear abandoned on a small
Speaker 2: and melting piece of ice. He looks so sad, doesn't he.
Speaker 2: It's true that polar bears are really suffering right now,
Speaker 2: and It's also true that the Arctic is melting. I've
Speaker 2: seen it for myself, but for a lot of people,
Speaker 2: climate change just doesn't look like that. In Southeast Asia,
Speaker 2: which has the most coastline of any region, climate change
Speaker 2: looks like biblical floods, which are becoming part of a
Speaker 2: new normal. Seriously, google it. I mean, don't google it
Speaker 2: now because I want you to keep listening. But if
Speaker 2: you search for flooding Bangkok, you'll see photo after photo
Speaker 2: of people using canoes to navigate flooded streets and desperately
Speaker 2: trying to push small motorbikes through waste high water. Bangkok
Speaker 2: is one of the many cities across the world that
Speaker 2: is sinking, and landscape architects that Kotcha Khan Voracom are
Speaker 2: fighting desperately to save the city from becoming completely uninhabitable.
Speaker 2: Kocha Korn our guest today, is using landscape architecture to
Speaker 2: build more resilient cities. In her hometown of Bangkok, she
Speaker 2: designed one of the most incredible parks in the world.
Speaker 2: Here's a clip from her ted talk.
Speaker 1: This park is not about getting rid of flood, It's
Speaker 1: about creating a way how we can leave with it.
Speaker 2: So all's to say the reason behind the design of
Speaker 2: that park is actually pretty sad. See Bangkok is one
Speaker 2: of many delta cities around the world, which means for
Speaker 2: autumn flooding, I'm a normal part of life there with
Speaker 2: many benefits for the ecosystem, but that normal flooding has
Speaker 2: become far more intense and disruptive as a planet is
Speaker 2: heating up. What Bangkok is dealing with now is something
Speaker 2: new and dangerous, and this demands radical adaptations.
Speaker 1: It's never been a small town when I was born,
Speaker 1: but to see the town's expanding and more dense, I
Speaker 1: just feel that this is kind of part of like
Speaker 1: growing up and seeing the city confronting with many challenges,
Speaker 1: like in terms of population, in terms of density, in
Speaker 1: term of the climate crisis, in terms of environmental degradation.
Speaker 1: So I think that's like who I am as well.
Speaker 1: The city is like who you are as part of
Speaker 1: you as a person. So Bangkok is it's a fun city,
Speaker 1: lots of culture and you may not that Tailan hasn't
Speaker 1: been coronized, so I think the culture is quite there.
Speaker 1: The city is there for probably two hundred plus years
Speaker 1: as the capital of Thailand.
Speaker 2: Like many cities that have grown fast. Bangkok has been
Speaker 2: paved over with a lot of concrete, but all that
Speaker 2: concrete has disrupted the natural cycle of flooding and the
Speaker 2: landscape's usual sponginess.
Speaker 1: Yes, so when it's flood, is actually flood on top
Speaker 1: of the concrete because the water don't know where to go.
Speaker 1: So we have this big path of huge urban setting
Speaker 1: that cover on top of this flood plain, and we
Speaker 1: cut off many canals and at some point we lose
Speaker 1: sense of how we connect to the land and then
Speaker 1: the cycle of the water.
Speaker 2: And growing up as a child in that environment, I mean,
Speaker 2: especially when the flooding was happening, was that something that
Speaker 2: was as a child? Was that fun when you had
Speaker 2: the flooding, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: She's the best part of the whole year. Because you
Speaker 1: need to go to school, school.
Speaker 3: Clothes, we don't know how to get there, because the whole.
Speaker 1: Story was like water that was fun. I think the.
Speaker 3: Water is quite clean enough that you know, like we
Speaker 3: can play and you know, like be part of life.
Speaker 3: And I think when it's flood we just take out
Speaker 3: the boat and then.
Speaker 1: You know, seeing or race boat racing and there's so
Speaker 1: many other culture in Thai culture that relating to a flood,
Speaker 1: it's good.
Speaker 2: Water is a essential part of Thai identity and culture,
Speaker 2: like for Tongue is an annual nationwide festival celebrating the
Speaker 2: water spirits where locals and lanterns floating down the river,
Speaker 2: and the Thaire New Year Festival Song Kraan is a
Speaker 2: giant water festival where people throw water at each other
Speaker 2: in the streets in celebration of the New Year.
Speaker 1: And people call us amphibious. Right, you know how to
Speaker 1: leave it wet and dry?
Speaker 2: That's lovely, that's great. Let's say I think that's wonderful.
Speaker 2: It's a beautiful fort, isn't it. But as floodings become
Speaker 2: more intense and more frequent, water's influence on Thai culture
Speaker 2: has become less fun and more serious. In twenty eleven,
Speaker 2: Thailand experience the largest flood in a century. The entire
Speaker 2: Thai Floodplain, which makes up a central region of the country, flooded.
Speaker 2: It started in the less populated central north of Thailand.
Speaker 2: During that time, the government attempted to build makeshift dams
Speaker 2: and barriers that would stop the flooding from continuing down
Speaker 2: to Bangkok. This trapped water in impoverished areas in the
Speaker 2: countries north, but nothing can prevent the water from eventually
Speaker 2: coming to Bangkok.
Speaker 1: So Bangkok is of course delta city. Right. The whole
Speaker 1: water had to come through the city to go into
Speaker 1: the ocean.
Speaker 2: Which meant that the entire city had to evacuate.
Speaker 1: All the news, all the business had to close down,
Speaker 1: airport couldn't function, the whole cities become very empty. Because
Speaker 1: people like your neighbors living and yes, but for some people,
Speaker 1: poverty is become very part of the society, right, they
Speaker 1: kind of move any other place, so they and I
Speaker 1: have to stay in the flood, right, and you're thinking
Speaker 1: about electric city systems that you know, all this thing
Speaker 1: has very become very dangerous. So situation is getting like
Speaker 1: either you die or you survive. Millions of people have
Speaker 1: to move. And I think that's become like the deep
Speaker 1: fear of other Bangkokian that when it's going to happen again.
Speaker 2: And for Couchucorn, it was an alarm bell. Our country
Speaker 2: was in crisis.
Speaker 1: We assume that Bangkok will be able to enlarge its
Speaker 1: capacity to our greed. Right, we want more people, we
Speaker 1: want more buildings, we want more economics, We want more tourists,
Speaker 1: and we assume that Bangkok can handle it. Where it's
Speaker 1: the land itself. Every lane or every infrastructure is has
Speaker 1: its capacity, and we also destroyed the natural infrastructure to
Speaker 1: reduce its capacity without knowing.
Speaker 2: Bangkok is a city famous for its canals, which provides
Speaker 2: essential flood mitigation, irrigation, and transportation. But to make room
Speaker 2: for city life, developers have cut off many of the
Speaker 2: canals from the riverways. In other instances, the canals are
Speaker 2: being completely dredged and filled in with sand or concrete.
Speaker 1: We destroyed wetland, we destroyed canals. We didn't concern that
Speaker 1: the whole watershed have to go to. Bangkok is have
Speaker 1: to be a wet city, a wet design. It's signed
Speaker 1: to get wet and its signed to get dry. But
Speaker 1: when we want to be modernized, all this construction of
Speaker 1: the city like high rise and things is the language
Speaker 1: of commonality that we understand about the city, but we
Speaker 1: forget that the city is not a piece of paper.
Speaker 1: It's actually situated on the landscape is the wetland. The
Speaker 1: city has forget it's landscape, the land, the ground.
Speaker 2: To put the crisis in perspective, Cocha Corn offered this comparison,
Speaker 2: and the.
Speaker 1: Cellpa is getting melt. It's increasingly what quite one eighth
Speaker 1: or two millimeters per year? That's right, really yeah, but
Speaker 1: we sink two centimeters per year, So that's mean we
Speaker 1: sink for a time faster than a sea level is rising.
Speaker 2: So you've got storm surges and intense rainy seasons and
Speaker 2: at the same time we're drawing out more water from
Speaker 2: below the cities, and the number of people living there
Speaker 2: is increasing by the day. It's the perfect storm. And
Speaker 2: the practical upshot is the cities are actually sinking, and
Speaker 2: the big question is can we reverse it? Is anything
Speaker 2: we do going to be enough.
Speaker 1: We have solar farms and many other sources of renewable energy,
Speaker 1: and of course we are talking about energy transition, but
Speaker 1: how fast we willing to change?
Speaker 2: Some delta cities are taking much more substantial measures to
Speaker 2: address for flooding issues. Indonesia has chosen to create an
Speaker 2: entirely new capital. The new city will be on a
Speaker 2: different island from today's capital Jakarta, one with high hills
Speaker 2: and far less people. But Kocha Korn says this idea
Speaker 2: is a non starter in Thailand.
Speaker 1: But for US we don't even talk about moving Bangkok
Speaker 1: right cusually or whatever. Politically is very sensitive and as
Speaker 1: a politician, if you talk about I'm going to move Bangkok,
Speaker 1: You're not going to get any word from the day one.
Speaker 2: Right, it's a new capital. It's a new capital, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Chakata will remain as a city. But it's an extraordinary adaptation,
Speaker 2: isn't it? To a sinking city will move a capital.
Speaker 1: But I just feel that as the est used to
Speaker 1: call us amphibious, we have ability to be wet and dry,
Speaker 1: and I just feel that if you want to remain
Speaker 1: Bangkok as is, we need to go back to be
Speaker 1: more amphibious.
Speaker 2: Which would be a huge shift from what Bangkok looks
Speaker 2: like today. For most of it's modern history, Bangkok has
Speaker 2: dealt with flooding by building gray infrastructure or traditional engineering solutions.
Speaker 2: I think sea walls, ditches, and dams.
Speaker 1: Those solution is based on fear. So all the solution
Speaker 1: is actually making us less resilience.
Speaker 2: Which seems incredible, doesn't it, Because you know, the traditional
Speaker 2: for me growing up, the view that was always pushed
Speaker 2: was we can just engineer our way out of these problems.
Speaker 2: We put more gray engineering in We're putting more dams,
Speaker 2: more sea walls, and we'll be all right. And what
Speaker 2: we're realizing increasingly is it's just that's that's a dead end,
Speaker 2: that is not going to get us out of this.
Speaker 2: It's all built for resilience we so desperately need.
Speaker 1: Yes, I just feel that we are so caught up
Speaker 1: into like this number. The bigger, the better, the stronger,
Speaker 1: the more concrete, the better, the safer we will be.
Speaker 1: And it's proved us wrong right throughout.
Speaker 2: This and we've had in mind. Koltchakn decided to create
Speaker 2: a completely new park in Bangkok. As a landscape architect,
Speaker 2: she's focused on addressing boath for needs of the people
Speaker 2: who will use the space and also the needs of
Speaker 2: the city itself.
Speaker 1: We use nature as our mediums like architects they use concrete,
Speaker 1: they use class that use structure right before landscape architects.
Speaker 1: We have trees, we have soil, we have plants, we
Speaker 1: have biodiversity. This is the language of our professions, and
Speaker 1: how can we use the design to enhance those materials
Speaker 1: is living materials.
Speaker 2: In this urban setting.
Speaker 1: So landscape architects is actually the job that kind of
Speaker 1: like finding the balance between cities and the nature and
Speaker 1: its landscape. Event it has been destroyed, we help to
Speaker 1: re claim. Event it has been forgotten, we helped to recreate.
Speaker 2: And that's what culture Corns set out to do. When
Speaker 2: Chula Longkorn University, the oldest university in Thailand, put out
Speaker 2: a request for proposals, but what to do with eleven
Speaker 2: acres of land in central Bangkok as part of their
Speaker 2: centennial celebration.
Speaker 1: And the plot of land is actually in the middle
Speaker 1: of the city. The price of the land itself right
Speaker 1: now is probably one billion US got people, yes, So
Speaker 1: it's like at at the heart of Bangkok, and people
Speaker 1: might assume it can be many other things. I'm not
Speaker 1: a shopping malls and do you think we need my
Speaker 1: shopping mill in Bangkok?
Speaker 2: Okay, We've got to pause here for our segment. Holy fuck,
Speaker 2: Bangkok has almost sixty males. The largest is over five
Speaker 2: and a half million square feet. That's bigger than Vatican City,
Speaker 2: and they just keep coming. Bangkok hadn't opened a new
Speaker 2: park for thirty years until Kochakorn created hers. But during
Speaker 2: that same length of time, Bangkok built a whopping thirty
Speaker 2: six mega malls. These babies are multiple flaws, tricked out
Speaker 2: with the latest trends and cooled down the best air
Speaker 2: conditioning in the city. But it's not just the energy
Speaker 2: they used today, it's the energy and pollution caused to
Speaker 2: build these monstrosities. Cement is a super polluter. If the
Speaker 2: cement industry were a country, it would be the third
Speaker 2: largest emitter in the world, after China and the US.
Speaker 2: So when Kolchakor makes this quip about shopping malls, she's
Speaker 2: totally serious. They really are a huge climate issue in Bangkok.
Speaker 2: It's the kind of fact that makes you say, holy fuck.
Speaker 1: So we propose to have like an architecture for some function,
Speaker 1: but the main concept is actually creating mitigation for flood
Speaker 1: to adaptive design of the park.
Speaker 2: The entire park is built with floods in mind. One
Speaker 2: end of a park is elevated, sitting on the top
Speaker 2: of a small museum, and the hill serves an important purpose.
Speaker 2: It allows the water to drain down to the retention
Speaker 2: ponds that Cochacorn built throughout the park. Because Bangkok was
Speaker 2: built on a floodplain, it has no hills. The water
Speaker 2: used to be absorbed into the wetlands, but these have
Speaker 2: long been paved over, So the water needs a place
Speaker 2: to go, and it needs a bit of help figuring
Speaker 2: out where to go once it hits the ground. The
Speaker 2: hill solves that problem. It's an incredibly simple idea, but
Speaker 2: it looks elegant and it complements the landscape beautifully. And
Speaker 2: then can you tell me a bit about how the
Speaker 2: rain water is actually cleaned by the plants in the park.
Speaker 1: So when you tilt the whole park, you have the
Speaker 1: highest point and then the lowest point, so that drainage
Speaker 1: pattern is actually equipped with the wetland and with the
Speaker 1: water plants that can help and clean up the water,
Speaker 1: and you can just loop that circulation back and forth
Speaker 1: as part of the recreation areas in the park. That's
Speaker 1: how the water plants become a major part of how
Speaker 1: this park function.
Speaker 2: And one of the things I think that this park
Speaker 2: shows so beautifully is it's how we can adapt to
Speaker 2: climate change. And it's this idea that we can't fight
Speaker 2: all the changes we're seeing. We're going to have to
Speaker 2: learn to live with them, or even even thrive amongst them.
Speaker 2: And one of the aspects of that which I really
Speaker 2: I just thought was incredible is the bike design you
Speaker 2: have for the retention ponds in the park, Can you
Speaker 2: explain what these bikes do?
Speaker 1: Soide the level part of the park is this retention pond.
Speaker 1: So I put like eight bike cycle. It's a water bicycle.
Speaker 1: And when you come to the park you have to
Speaker 1: exercise anyway, So we're thinking like how can we make
Speaker 1: that exercise be part of the urban water system. So
Speaker 1: when you exercise, you burn your carry and by that
Speaker 1: that pedal of that bicycle can actually errate it that
Speaker 1: retention on the energy that you have to put to
Speaker 1: the bike depends on the water level. It's different every day.
Speaker 2: So did you encounter any resistance to your ideas?
Speaker 3: How was it?
Speaker 2: What was it like actually getting this being built up?
Speaker 1: Of course isn't that easy. We probably have a new
Speaker 1: park every every year. Right, it has been like thirty
Speaker 1: years without a new park in the Central bankrupt years.
Speaker 2: Thirty years good.
Speaker 1: Yes, some of our audience hasn't hasn't been born yet, Yes,
Speaker 1: so thirty years ago, like no more park and you
Speaker 1: can see how big the city, how dense the city.
Speaker 1: We're fucking the future, We're work in the future.
Speaker 2: Culture Corn faced enormous challenges getting the park opened but
Speaker 2: today it is considered a huge success and a case
Speaker 2: study for how to make cities more resilient to flooding.
Speaker 1: It's become a very popular place for the youngster, especially
Speaker 1: through this pandemic period that mental health becomes such a
Speaker 1: very important thing. So just to have an open space
Speaker 1: to park that you can come and join and relax
Speaker 1: is very valuable. And with the purpose of this flooding mitigation,
Speaker 1: I think if people just come to the park because
Speaker 1: it's nice, that's the footstep. But when they start to
Speaker 1: understand why it's be designed the way it is, I
Speaker 1: think that's then another way to invite them to understand
Speaker 1: and be part of this climate solution. It's also or
Speaker 1: help reduce the ourban heat island in that area. With
Speaker 1: the research, with the temperature around the park is actually
Speaker 1: getting better than other block of the concrete buildings.
Speaker 2: The park holds up to a million gallons of water,
Speaker 2: which is so important right now because Bangkok is experiencing
Speaker 2: some of the most intense rain seasons in its history.
Speaker 1: Last year we experienced one hundred years of rain period
Speaker 1: twice in one season.
Speaker 2: Really, the park has also contributed to increase biodiversity in Bangkok, itself.
Speaker 1: Natural infrastructure has many co benefits. I'm not only talking
Speaker 1: about my park to solve flooding, It's also talking about
Speaker 1: the health of the city, the health of the citizens,
Speaker 1: the mental health, the open heat island, the biodiversity increased
Speaker 1: in that surrounding area. We found more thirty type of
Speaker 1: birds coming. So I just feel that this kind of
Speaker 1: like nature based solution has mountain beneficial that every city
Speaker 1: should reclaim, recall, regenerate, regenerate, whatever your nature is.
Speaker 2: Cotchacorn is just getting started. All her projects share the
Speaker 2: same guiding principle. We should rely on the natural environment
Speaker 2: to guide the way for design. Not if you have
Speaker 2: a way around, I'm not.
Speaker 1: Going to be Not if they stop every development, damn
Speaker 1: is bad. No, But how can we work to hybrid
Speaker 1: these two things together. It's about how we can work
Speaker 1: better with conventional engineer. I think when you work with nature,
Speaker 1: you need to work with hope, right because you know
Speaker 1: that the plan that you grow, you're not going to
Speaker 1: be completely benefit from it because it takes time. The
Speaker 1: plan that you grow today is actually not only gonna
Speaker 1: be fit your lifetime, but it's going to benefit other
Speaker 1: people's life and continues.
Speaker 2: Wow. I absolutely loved my conversation with Kochacorn. I was
Speaker 2: so impressed by how much she is thinking long term
Speaker 2: about the unique history of the land she comes from
Speaker 2: and what she can do to protect its culture generations
Speaker 2: into the future. And while not all of us are
Speaker 2: visionary landscape architects, there are still a lot of ways
Speaker 2: that we can learn from her example, which brings us
Speaker 2: to our final segment today.
Speaker 4: Fuck can I know.
Speaker 2: This is a part of a show where we talk
Speaker 2: about what you at home can do to help fight
Speaker 2: for climate crisis, and joining us as always is our
Speaker 2: good friend and activist Maggie Baird. Hi, Maggie, are you
Speaker 2: ready to create a new Cotchacorn inspired park in Los Angeles?
Speaker 5: Well, Chris, I am not there quite yet, but I
Speaker 5: really wish I could be. I was really inspired by
Speaker 5: Catchihorn's designs. In our own lives, we can do small
Speaker 5: things like this. For example, in our house, we took
Speaker 5: out the grass in our front yard and put drought
Speaker 5: resistant plants, and in every area of the country it
Speaker 5: will be a little bit different. But this also goes
Speaker 5: to show you how important it is to raise your
Speaker 5: voice and keep talking about the climate in every aspect
Speaker 5: of life, and beyond that, I want to direct people
Speaker 5: to the Nature Conservancy. If you're in the US, you
Speaker 5: might live in one of the many cities where their
Speaker 5: North American Citi's network partners with local orgs to co
Speaker 5: create equitable conservation practices and nature based solutions that address
Speaker 5: the voice and the vision of local communities. We can
Speaker 5: put some links in the show notes because, as we've
Speaker 5: heard word, nature based solutions can make a tremendous difference
Speaker 5: in helping alleviate climate extremes.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Maggie. I love that I'm equally inspired
Speaker 2: by a story, and I'd love to see more people
Speaker 2: start working sustainably in their cities. And that's what the
Speaker 2: fuck you can do? What the fuck can I do?
Speaker 2: I want to close in this message of hope from
Speaker 2: Kochacus ted talk she gave back in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: No matter how rough the path, how big the crack,
Speaker 1: you push to your goal because that's where your heart is.
Speaker 1: And yes, Thailand is home. This land is my only home,
Speaker 1: and that's where I firmly stand my heart. Where do
Speaker 1: you stand?
Speaker 2: Yours?
Speaker 1: Thank you? Thank you? How path?
Speaker 2: I think we can all learn from Culture Corn's inspiring
Speaker 2: vision and words. I'm so grateful we were able to
Speaker 2: have her on the show. That's all for this episode.
Speaker 2: Next time on I'm Fucking the Future, I'll talk with
Speaker 2: m Sanjan, the CEO of a world's leading conservation organization,
Speaker 2: Conservation International, about how we can harness a power of
Speaker 2: oceans to save our planet.
Speaker 4: If you don't have a healthy ocean, you are making
Speaker 4: it impossible to have a healthy planet. And you know,
Speaker 4: I think we have spent so little effort focusing on oceans. Generally,
Speaker 4: the amount of conservation dollars going into it is tiny.
Speaker 2: Until then, I'm Chris Turney signing off from Sydney, Australia.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining me in I'm Fucking the Future. We're
Speaker 2: Fucking the Future. I'm Fucking the Future is produced by
Speaker 2: Imagine Audio and Awfully Nice for iHeart Podcasts and hosted
Speaker 2: by me Chris Turney. The show is written by Meredith Bryan.
Speaker 2: I'm Fucking the Future is produced by Amber von Shassen
Speaker 2: and Renee Colvert. Ron Howard Brian Grazer, Carral Welker and
Speaker 2: Nathan Chloke are the executive producers from Imagine Audio. Jesse
Speaker 2: Burton and Katie Hodges are the executive producers from Awfully Nice,
Speaker 2: sound design and mixing by Evan Arnette, original music by
Speaker 2: Lilly Hayden, and producing services by Peter mcgriggan. Sam Swinerton
Speaker 2: wrote our theme and all those fun jingles. If you
Speaker 2: enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate and review Unfucking
Speaker 2: the Future on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.