How did you become the advisor of the property?
I designed landscapes for the Siam Square 1 project which is under construction, so I had the chance to meet the management team, who invited me to become their landscape advisor to oversee the Siam Square area.
What’s the most exciting thing about Siam Square 1?
We want to make public spaces as useful as possible. Siam doesn’t really have much green space. It’s all concrete. So I decided to incorporate green space into the building; there will be a lot of open space as well as a rooftop that’s all green with grass. I hope it will open later this year, as scheduled.
What’s next for Siam?
Siam is really old now. It was built 50 years ago without any idea that it would become so popular, filled with hundreds of thousands of people coming to visit the big malls every day. So now we plan to transform Siam under the three pillars of Urban Space, Green and Social Art to better facilitate the flow of people. Siam has no public space where people can gather for a purpose other than shopping or parking their cars, so we aim to make Siam an open art museum by inviting artists to show their works and encouraging people to express themselves. We want to make Siam dynamic 24/7.
What do you think about the criticism that Chulalongkorn is developing the area purely for money?
I think it’s quite unfair. I oversee the Siam area, and I can say it’s really old, both in terms of design and construction. The structures of some shophouses are built from wood that has deteriorated, and Bangkok is sinking every year. Is it to safe to let things stay like that? With the development, we aim to best meet the urban needs of people. The Siam Square 1 project, with its green roof and low maintenance, won’t be cheap at all, but we decided to do it because people desperately need more green spaces here. As for Uthentawai, I’m not sure what’s next for them.
What about conservation in the future?
I’m not sure I’m in the position to comment as I’m just an advisor. But as someone who spent tons of time here as a teenager, I see Siam as a box of memories for everyone. There are all the good times and the bad, like when it was burnt down three years ago, but it’s still there. A theater like Scala is beautiful architecturally, but not so much a place like Lido. This is something we need to examine closely: couldn’t we just create a place that offers cheap screenings but is more appealing to look at?
