HKU Landscape undergrads just concluded their final year with our Thai-Myanmar Border Studio. For its second year, this landscape planning studio course, led by professor Ashley Scott Kelly, examined a series of contentious and protracted development projects along the border between Thailand and Myanmar. These projects included planned dams on the Salween and Yuam rivers, a coal mine in Chiang Mai province, and a large-scale water diversion tunnel proposed from the Salween to Chao Phraya basins.
Students gain understanding in the studio not only of how planners or architects or landscape architects might be involved in large-scale planning projects but also how cultural anthropologists or political scientists might approach, evaluate, and address development throughout Southeast Asia. The curriculum combines both desktop research and field visits and addresses topics including environmental histories of Thailand and Myanmar, participatory and customary mapping, transnational advocacy for environmental and human rights, land governance, traditional ecological knowledge, conservation science, villager research, and environmental assessment.
In mid-March, students embarked on a 10-day overland journey covering approximately 400 kilometers from Chiang Mai to Mae Sot. During this trip, students engaged with several environmental and human rights advocacy groups, including The Border Consortium (TBC), Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN), indigenous community groups, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), and ecologists from the Forest Restoration Research Unit (FORRU) and sociologists from the Center for Ethnic Studies and Development (CESD) at Chiang Mai University. Then, for eight weeks after returning to Hong Kong, students developed landscape planning proposals that coordinated environmental knowledge through community mapping, villager research, and citizen science; addressed conflicts between biocultural diversity and scientific reforestation programs; and navigated diverse cultural and environmental value systems in dual-governed regions.
Students defended their proposals at the final review with a diverse jury, including Richard Engelhardt (Former UNESCO Regional Advisor for Culture in Asia and the Pacific); Prof. Jeff Hou (Chair Professor and Head of Department of Architecture, NUS); David Gallacher (Executive Director, Environment, AECOM); Warong Wonglangka (Faculty of Architecture, Chiang Mai University); Jason Lubanski (Karen Environmental and Social Action Network, KESAN); Sunita Kwangta (Karen Environmental and Social Action Network, KESAN); Dorothy Tang (Master of Landscape Architecture Program Director, NUS); Jayde Roberts (School of Built Environment, Univ. of New South Wales); Vũ Việt Anh (Dept. of Urban Planning, Univ. of Architecture Ho Chi Minh City); Billy Hau (HKU School of Biological Sciences); Peter Cobb (HKU School of Humanities); and several planners and designers from HKU Planning, Architecture, and Landscape Architecture.
The students and Ashley express their gratitude to the jury and to HKU for its continued support for fostering critical and essential discussions about landscape development across the regions. Congratulations to all students!
Posted by: Ashley Scott Kelly (Design for Conservation)