Ming Mongkol Green Park
They also wanted this place to help promote social service and interaction for the people who live nearby, as well as be a place that will help increase tourism and give people the opportunity to interact with nature — a leisure activity that is hard to find in Thailand’s cities.
The park designers also hope to help benefit the local OTOP product and temporary market. According to the Royal Thai Embassy, “OTOP stands for ‘One Tambon (meaning subdistrict) One Product.’ It is a local entrepreneurship stimulus program which aims to support the unique locally made and marketed products of each Thai tambon all over Thailand.”
To help encourage this market, Landscape Architects 49 Limited included a special blend of service facilities, including public restrooms, a coffee shop, retail shops, both permanent and temporary local product vendor kiosks, and an herbal garden. All of these things blend together to create a park with a vernacular landscape.
This park also implements the “Sustainable Living” philosophy under the initiative of Thailand’s king. The OTOP kiosk was designed to be aesthetically pleasing alongside needed architectural components. This was done by creating facades that reveal the steel structure within, which expresses both its strength and beauty simultaneously.
This same of idea of dual functionality flows into the landscape itself. Here, the main concept was to create a design that would not only be functional, but would also embrace Thai culture by laying out the park in the same manner as a Thai city. To do this, the designers created a community center and marketplace and sought to preserve existing trees.