Between the Trees
ASA (The Association of Siamese Architects under Royal Patronage)
International Experimental Design Competition 2023
Design Competition & Research.
Territorial Conflict in an Unregulated Industry
Thailand acts as the largest producer of natural rubber globally, accounting for more than a third of worldwide supplies in 2022. As a result of its policies, or lack thereof, extensive deforestation, a decline in biodiversity, and a sharp increase in soil erosion presented themselves as inevitable collateral damages.
Nationwide, 1.7 million smallholder producers of rubber rely on their output for a living, driven by financial motives rather than ecological responsibility, which they perceive as burdens. Rubber plants and its ecosystem are cut down at the end of their productive lifecycle to be sold as materials and assets. Re-examining the way we co-exist with the total ecosystem, how can we find, and maintain, a balance between farmers' income, improved livelihoods, and environmental sustainability?
There are 12 million acres of rubber plantations across the nation, half of which are situated in national forests and other protected forest areas. To address the issues of deforestation and an oversupply of latex resulting in price slumps, the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment and the Rubber Authority of Thailand (RAOT) are prepared to remove these rubber plantation operations and reclaim the forests by planting assorted vegetations to mark territories. The government goal is to increase the country's forest coverage to 40% by 2040.
Phase 0 - The Substratum (Y0)
The actions taken by the government reveals opportunities for discourses on the shifting paradigms and architecture’s response to it. The proposal is a critique and intervention into the current affairs of Thailand’s rubber plantation industry, offering a scheme that satisfies the intersection of interest between human and nature, in order to create a new joint sustainable ambition.
The masterplan model proposes a forest reclamation methodology that focuses on resource management, plot allocations, and sensitive architectural intervention on protected and underdeveloped lands, employing agriculturists and farmers as the caretakers of these active recuperating grounds. By extending the full reclamation deadline to 22 years — the average productive lifespan of a rubber plantation — the government can benefit from an element of guardianship over the growing forest while the farmers can benefit from the latex supply.
Reclamation does not need to mean the deforestation of existing rubber plantations, a counterintuitive act at the core. The existing topology can be taken advantage of, through mixed-disciplinary action between architecture, agriculture, and landscape design to plan around and develop it into a thriving forest. The rubber plants can act as a foundation for agroforestry, the deliberate integration of trees and shrubs into systems of raising crops to create a resilient and sustainable crop yields with increased biodiversity. On under-developed empty plots of land, the same model can be employed to create this sustainable intensification from the start. Temporary facilities for humans on site are sensitively crafted and inserted among the tree grids, minimising tree removals and human footprint upon returning the forest back to nature at the end of the anthropogenic mediation.
Guided by a central “manual”, the document acts as a formal guideline, educational resource, and archiving journal to form a resilient coexistence model between human and nature. The carefully curated chronological framework offers plot division and planting methodologies, both in the agricultural and architectural sense. It provides a comprehensive guide to floras and faunas and how to maintain them. It provides guidelines on the assembly and disassembly of architecture on site, along with vernacular material knowledge and its carbon footprint - coupled with offset strategies.
The outcome is an enforced plot of land that ensures the protection and security of biodiversity while acting as a carbon sequestration pool, reclaimed back to nature as part of Thailand's forest reserves. The government will be able to provide job opportunities to agriculturist and landless farmers, creating and moderating a network of sustainable latex production that yields greater export prices. These sites will further act as windbreaks infrastructures, reducing soil erosion as well as protecting nearby neighbourhoods from seasonal storms. The farmers are able to have job security, benefitting from the fruits of their labour, coexisting with the environment they nurtured.
Phase 1 - Guardianship (Y1 — Y6)
The implementation of the manual marks the starting point of a new symbiotic relationship, an establishment in both the naturogenic and anthropogenic sense. New planting of vegetation occurs on a grid system within the site alongside the sparse establishment of architectural facilities.
New-built architecture will support the farmers and agriculturists deployed, aiding them in the nurturing and reclamation process. Timber structures are assembled to form a seed bank, a latex processing workshop, and accommodations and communal areas. Any materials used, either sourced from on or off site, will act on a loan basis. The manual will provide the amount of material used for each typology of architectural structure and also includes the amount of new trees needed to be planted to offset the carbon footprint. This enables the scheme to be carbon neutral, and even negative. These structures are fragmented across the location in-between the span of each tree rows and columns, to enable easier spot healing when the architecture is dismantled from the scene at the end of life.
As humans settle into the forest, new forms of relationship begin to take place. First, the farmers are starting to grow, care, and nurture the forest, strategically utilising the seed bank to curate a biodiverse environment where all living forms can thrive. Second, the agroforestry model begins to take place, where the forest is taking care of the forest. Existing rubber trees can help new vegetation grow as they stabilise the soil, reduce nutrient runoffs, and provide sufficient shadings. On empty plots of land, the same benefits can be gained from planting rubber trees as fast-growing vegetation.
Phase 2 - Coexistence (Y7 — Y22)
A third type of relationship, where the forest takes care of the human, begins to reveal itself as the site matures. From providing rubber yields and the fruition of other economic crops, the forest can provide construction materials, shading and spaces of habitation, windbreak infrastructures, as well as carbon credits.
To maintain these relationships and dynamic, any built architecture will be offset naturally, maintaining balance through parallel expansions. The architecture will not be considerate to only humans but the surrounding biodiversity, and detailed records will be taken to keep track and maintain transparency. This interspecies and considerate way of living allows for the forest ecosystem to exist, and benefit, from the manmade environment, and vice-versa.
For a vast variety of creatures, both above and below ground, the scheme generates an array of ecological niches. Below ground, insects and worms thrive and navigate through the fertile soil. On ground, humans are able to utilise the shades of the mature trees, responsibly harvesting produce while acting as a guardian of the forest. Above ground, tropical bats and birds nestled within the foliage and architectural structures integrated within. The site has reached the epitome of coexistence.
Phase 3 - Unforeseen Afterlife (Y23+)
As the rubber resources begin to deplete and reach the end of its productive lifespan, the community will work with the government to start preparing to migrate onto a new site. Instead of the usual deforestation of the plantation, the trees will now see a phase of life in which they continue to serve as habitats for the various established species. The preserved forest will be returned back to nature, but now as a self-sustaining woodland.
The community will begin disassembling and dismantling its built works, finding new-found value for it off-site. In its place are resources from the seedbank, patching up the human footprint left on the forest. Some elements of architecture that are deeply rooted within the site and its biodiversity will be left as a legacy, transferring ownership to the floras and fauna that continues to inhabit within.
By understanding the diverse and idiosyncratic nature of forest typology, the model we create can convey the tension, vibrancy, and innovation of human existence alongside our environment, manifested through the wit and knowledge of its potential.
