Collaborative Community Design Processes in Rural and Urban Settlements in Thailand

Abstract

This paper compares two contrasting processes of low-income community design in rural and urban areas in Thailand. The low-income Srabot community in the urban area is constructing a new settlement on newly purchased land. In parallel, the indigenous Banggloy community is located in the National Park as a community who were forcibly evicted from their village home to an allocated area where they constructed dwellings in the new village. Both cases were supported by housing loans and funding from the Thai Community Organizations Development Institute (CODI)1. The aim of this paper is to examine collaborative learning process based on low-income community design. Both cases employed participatory housing and planning design workshops. The urban community focused on designing the community masterplan. In contrast, the rural indigenous community concentrated on the housing design. In both projects, the occupants were encouraged to be the key actors and to decentralize the solution finding process. The outcome of workshops generated the activities and possible solutions that respect the need for the stakeholders and motivate them to continue to be active.