Jariyaporn Prachasartta , Sansern Prapa-Apirat , Eakapob Huangthanapan , Supakrit Wongviboonsin
Thailand
According to projections from the UN, global population will reach up to 9.8 billion (currently 7.6) by the year 2050. This will potentially lead to food and shelter shortages expected to hit major cities world-wide, as the planet struggles to feed and house billions more. In major cities such as Bangkok. We began to see the patches in the urban fabric filling up at a rapid pace, transformed into high-density vertical concrete slums boxing up families like packed sardine cans.
As the world and its spectacular medical and technological advancements progresses, global population has been trending towards a lower fertility rate as well and a higher life expectancy rate, rising to 6.6 years during the past decade. The compounded effects result in a clogged-up generation of a retired society lacking both growth and available space.
We look towards an opportunity from a local sustainable industry, the rubber plantation business. Rubber plantations has been a vernacular business which has sunk its roots into historical Thai culture. In modern practice, rubber farmers would harvest rubber fluid from the tree trunks for 6 years before the tree is unable to produce any fluid, leading to its disposal, while the harvested latex are utilized into variety of products with many of them dedicated to elderly health and commodities.
In this proposal we challenge the trending conditions of our future city, potentially transforming the city by integrating a sustainable vernacular practice to it. By utilizing rubber latex and wood from rubber trees, we see an opportunity to transform an inhabitable city by using rubber tree woods to create light weight extensions from existing city structures. By combining rubber material with wooden framings, we begin to imagine new types of recreational spaces derived from the rooftops of existing structures that caters toward the Bangkok aging society.