The Bangkok River Exchange hosted a talk at River City Tuesday that focused on redeveloping underserved urban areas.
The event addressed the phenomena generally, with a talk from Australian revitalization advocate Marcus Westbury, and got local with updates from stakeholders in the Co-create Charoenkrung initiative.
This initiative’s purpose is to revitalize the old town section of the city near Charoenkrung Road and the riverside.
Several groups have come together over the last year to research the viability of making a creative district by the river. Stakeholders include: Thailand Creative and Design Center (TCDC), Office of Knowledge Management and Development (OKMD), Thai Health Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth) and Thammasart University.
The Co-create Charoenkrung project aims to conceptualize the new district, discover opportunities, issues and development ideas in accordance with design thinking principles.
The plans are currently still in the research and studying phase.
Stakeholders in the Charoen Krung project provided updates on their research. Yossapon Boonsom, architect and director of Shmn, and Peeradon Kaewlai, of Thammasart’s Faculty of Architecture & Planning, talked about making sure the new district meets the needs of current residents, provides an atmosphere conducive to open idea exchange and support to creative entrepreneurs.
They also want to respect the long history of the district and its architecture.
They presented the development concepts of recreating the public riverfront, adapting abandoned shophouses for creative purposes, creating “green pocket” parks out of underused small spaces, cleaning up local alleys to be used for transportation and commerce and creating signage that explains the area and draws people to it
Westbury, the featured speaker, shared his own success story of resuscitating the formerly struggling downtown area of Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia.
Westbury was the founder of Renew Newcastle, a nonprofit that helped to start more than 70 creative endeavors in more than 40 unused buildings in Newcastle, starting in 2009.
Basically, he successfully did what the Charoen Krung initiative hopes to do and offered some tips, advice and inspiration.
He presented how, through a grassroots approach, he managed to transform his hometown of Newcastle from a “ghosttown” to a booming retail hub. Watch his TED talk about the subject here.
His “renew” model includes: “borrowing” empty properties, staying cost neutral to property owners, managing insurance and compliance for the owners and creatives, starting with projects that don’t need government permission and “hacking” solutions through loopholes and exemptions rather than spending time trying to change legislation.
Want to find out more or get involved? The Charoen Krung project is hosting Co-create Test Days on March 28-30, where visitors can see or create their own mock-ups of the area and see how other visitors react to the changes in the landscape.
