In 2017-2018, Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, Thammasat University and International Institute for Environmental Development, UK, collaborated in a research project “Planning For Eco-Cities And Climate-Resilient Environments: Building Capacity For Inclusive Planning In The Bangkok Metropolitan Region (PEACE-BMR)”, funded by Newton Fund Institutional Link (British Council and Thailand Research Fund).

According to the project website, “[t]his collaboration aims to strengthen research links between the UK & Thailand to develop existing research capacity on urban climate resilience & inclusive, low carbon development. The collaboration will do this through building capacity of Thai researchers, raising awareness of urban stakeholders & incorporating local knowledge & practice into urban planning. This will equip urban actors with the skills and networks to address environmental & climatic issues facing Bangkok, with a specific focus on ensuring the inclusion of particularly vulnerable, low-income communities.”

Please see more detail here: http://www.urbanfuturestu.com/what-we-do/urban-resilience-2/iied/

From 2017-2020, Urban Futures and Policy Lab, Faculty of Architecture and Planning, Thammasat University participated in the four-year initiative of Urban Knowledge Network Asia (UKNA) on research, teaching, and dissemination of knowledge on Asia through the prism of the city and urban communities in the program called the Southeast Asia Neighbourhoods Network (SEANNET), funded by the Henry Luce Foundation (New York, USA).

According to the Urban Futures’ website,

“The program supports the development of contextualized knowledge on the spatio-human environment of neighborhoods in six select Southeast Asian cities through participative field-research, in situ policy roundtables, local capacity building exercises, academic conferences, publications, documentary films and new syllabi.

The aim of this micro-local framework of scholarly and civic engagement is to generate alternative, generalisable paradigms on city neighborhoods. The second ambition of the programme is to shape and empower a community of early career scholars and practitioners working on/from Southeast Asia who will contribute to the growing body of humanistically informed knowledge on Asian cities.”

Asst. Prof. Boonanan Natakun from Faculty of Architecture and Planning, Thammasat University is the researcher from Urban Futures and Policy Lab, and contributed one of the six case studies in this project. The six case studies included Mawlamyine in Myanmar; Chiang Mai and Bangkok in Thailand; Manila in the Philippines; Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam; Surabaya in Indonesia. Asst. Prof. Boonanan contributed the case of “Wat Kae Nang Leong”, Bangkok Thailand.

Please see the website for more details of the case studies and the project.

The Southeast Asia Neighbourhoods Network (SEANNET): An Interdisciplinary Regional Program Where Local City-Making Knowledge Can Shape Urban Studies

https://ukna.asia/projects/wat-kae-nang-leong-bangkok-thailand