LÉVA Urban Design AS
23. September 2009
Today, slum dwellers worldwide include one out of every three city dwellers, adding up to a billion people. (UNFPA 2008).
“While the world’s urban population grew very rapidly over the 20th century (from
220 million to 2.8 billion), the next few decades will see an unprecedented scale
of urban growth in the developing world. This will be particularly notable in
Asia and Africa where the urban population will double between 2000 and 2030,
after which developing countries will have 80 % of the world’s urban population”
(UNFPA 2008). An outstanding feature of urban population growth in the 21st century
is that it will be composed, to a large extent, of poor people (UN Millennium
Project 2005).
The project,
UPGRADING & INTEGRATION of Khlong Toei SLUM, is inspired by the challenges of the accelerated rising
of slums and the consequential urban segregation of the contemporary world, related
to the continuous urbanization and the growing number of megacities. We began
taking interest in this problem as students at Aalborg University, Denmark. During
a study tour in Bangkok in 2006, with Aalborg University, we got to see a side
of the city unknown to most tourists, the underside of the growing urbanization
– poverty.
Over the past several decades, Bangkok’s population has risen sharply, as a result
of urbanization. Including daily commuters, Bangkok’s current total population
is estimated to approximately 16 million. Bangkok surely is a city of contrasts.
On the one hand it emerges as a regional centre for tourists and business visitors,
extending beyond a horizon bristling with skyscrapers, elevated expressways and
skytrains, blending shopping centres, pockets of greenery, and glittering temples.
On the other hand the city struggles with the consequences of the city’s rapid
urbanization, with a whole range of issues, such as poverty, density, urban segregation,
waste management and pollution.
The project site, the Lock 1-3 community, is part of the massive Khlong Toei
slum. The settlement dates back to the 1950’s when dwellers settled in the low-lying
arc of land surrounding the port area and along the nearby canals as they worked
on the construction of the port. The area stands out as a special case in terms
of its socio-economic structure, its history of successful mobilisation against
eviction, the critical role of its NGO’s. Being a long- standing slum with a well-established
community organization this has enabled the slum to develop more than many other
slums. However, the tenure status of residents and the security of settlements
differ. (Askew 2002:152-153). Lock 1-3 is the neighbourhoods most disadvantaged,
with physical and environmental conditions not adding up to the satisfactory.
On site registrations revealed a linkage between the community’s physical structure
and the lifestyle of the dwellers. Based on these registrations, the project strives
to maintain the existing structure and upgrade the community focusing on the dwellers’
health, safety and life quality.
Research question:
How can we as urban designers, upgrade Khlong Toei slum and promote its integration
with the formal city, through physical design?
Definition Upgrading:
To enhance the inhabitants´ life quality by legalising the land, providing them
access to public services and improve their functional and aesthetical physical
environment.
Definition Integration:
To build a symbiotic relationship, understood and carefully nurtured between
the informal and formal city, through creating new opportunities for social interaction
and thereby suppressing the urban barriers between them.