Thipnatcha Trivatevorakul
Faculty of Architecture, Shilpakorn University  | Bangkok

In this interchangeable world, cityscape seems to be indifferent, locally and globally. Similarities can be seen on the clusters of high-rise buildings, intertwining with low-rise housing estates and, in most ci9es of the developing countries, slums, which have been constantly subjected to clearance. Giving that the identity of a city is built upon its various types of architecture as well as dwellers. Those shacks in slums of the low-income earners, to some extent, constitute to the city’s identity, although unpleasantly they may look. This leads to a challenge in architectural design upon which many architects have explored, and in many attempts unsucceeded.

This thesis therefore set out to explore the new identity in architecture of the low-income earners who are slum dwellers in one area of the central business district (CBD) of Bangkok. The purpose is to investigate in what ways and to what extent the local lives of those dwellers can be captured and transferred to design and introduce a new type of mid-rise residential building in an urban context. How the building design can accommodate the horizontal-village social lives to be integrated in the vertical residential units in such a way that their socio-economic strength can be intact and their life quality improve?

Thus, this can be seen as a challenge towards the globalisation and modernisation ideas of replacing and relocating slum dwellers to high-rise buildings, which have often failed for a long

term living, or to low-rise semi-self built buildings, which have usually under-achieved. It is hoped that this mid-rise residential building to re-habitating the horizontal life of Makkasan favela will create a new identity in architecture of the urban low-income earners in Bangkok.