Nanu Youttananukorn

Department: Social Design
Website: www.republicnanu.net

THE SPACE ABOVE

Bangkok is an extremely congested city with limited infrastructure and a constantly expanding population. The daily ordeal of traffic jams stifles the city’s inhabitants and confines them to a permanent state of entrapment. This poor state of mobility and available space is projected only to get worse as the city grows. Meanwhile, in the heart of Bangkok residential blocks are built back-to-back and side-to-side, making their rooftops rare and precious open spaces. This sanctuary from congestion and noise is often converted in creative ways to be functional, to suit an individual’s lifestyles, but with varying degrees of success.

This project explores the possibilities of enriching these important rooftop spaces of Bangkok. It aims to allow this limited resource of open space to be shaped creatively through an open system of construction that utilizes bamboo: a local, abundant, and inexpensive material. The system is designed for DIY assembly by the rooftops' owners, reducing an otherwise complex building process into a simple one. It also allows for more design-enthusiastic users to devise original elements, according to their individual needs yet still grounded in the same system. The project essentially empowers people to develop their own space above, and grants the user an earned sense of autonomy.