The document discusses several of Napong Rugkhapan's urban planning and design projects. It includes a project in Ratchaburi, Thailand that involved analyzing the historical development of a waterfront area and providing guidelines to enhance the local architectural character and urban patterns. Another project in Laem Ngop, Thailand developed landscape and stormwater management solutions. A third project studied building elevations in Singapore to examine the form of traditional shophouses.

1. NAPONG RUGKHAPAN Work Exhibit
URBAN PLANNER.DESIGNER.PHOTOGRAPHER
+66 081 948 1923 NRUGKHAPAN@GMAIL.COM

2. RATCHABURI, THAILAND
Urban block studies + waterfront revitalization
Background + zoning ordinance: a waterfront marketplace and community as the traditional urban core of the
city of Ratchaburi, currently designated as ‘Commercial and High-density residential in the land use zoning plan
Context
 A medium-sized city in western Thailand.
Size: 54 sq.km. Population: 37,000
 Historically, an inland port city with earlier waterfront settlements
as the original urban core that has undergone gradual
redevelopment over decades.
Project Aims
 To provide an in-depth analysis of the settlement formation
 To assemble a historical account of eclectic building typology Land use: a mix-used community with diverse uses and tenants; Block structure: uniform, fine-grained block
and settlement patterns. structure with small plot subdivisions and narrow frontages; ‘Lan’ (internal courtyard): an enclosed square within a
block as a public space surrounded by shophouses; Lan network: enhancing the route of five public squares nearby.
 To provide development and preservation guidelines,
capitalizing on the local ‘signature’ patterns.
 To revitalize the waterfront
Planning Principles
 Character: enhance the area’s distinct architectural character by
retaining buildings from various eras and ensure future
development conform s with the overall atmosphere.
 Diversity: build on the existing fine subdivision patterns to promote Vehicular street: simple street network superimposed Typological study: historical types of buildings by area
diverse retail activities and equitable access to property for motorized traffic; historic ‘Soi’ network: highly and building cycle; reveals an eclectic mix of styles, size,
ownership permeable, narrow informal pedestrian paths ingrained and material dating from mid 19th century to present
within the block, weaving frontages. day; makes for a dynamic skyline silhouette and
 Urban patterns: unearth existing urban patterns of ‘sois’ and ‘lans’, textured street block elevations.
use ‘sois’ (ซอย), local alleys, as a main network of pedestrian
circulation and ‘lans’ (ลาน), internal courtyards as public space
imbuing the area with presence of residents.
 Vitality: activate the waterfront with pedestrian-oriented activities
and a well-connected waterfront promenade, animated by the
area’s strong sense of physical identity.
Design guidance: form, structure, and material
Design guidance for redevelopment and preservation to ensure consistency and
Shophouses: vernacular type continuity in urban landscape. Special focused paid to the site’s identity: small
plot size, fine-grained pedestrian paths, and mixed tenure.
Napong Rugkhapan ￨ 1

3. RATCHABURI, THAILAND 13 street segments
The project studied 13 different street segments in the CBD of Ratchaburi
Unraveling Sidewalks: Analysis & Design at 5pm on a weekday. In using different analytical techniques, the project
hoped to develop a simple set of tools to better understand and assess
the city’s sidewalks.
Project Aims
 The project studied 13 street segments in Ratchaburi with the
following aims and goals:
 To develop a simple, easy-to-use tool to assess the built
environment, particularly the sidewalks;
 To unravel pedestrian experience with the sidewalks with
thematic analyses, believing the sidewalk is ‘layered’ rather
than flat; Pedestrian traffic
 To provide analytical techniques and design recommendations The highest pedestrian counts (above 300), represented as red bands, took
that are practical, actionable, and cost-effective for a town place at the marketplace and the waterfront areas. The 2nd highest counts
with limited capital endowment. (200-300, represented as orange) were around commercial streets and
schools. The lowest pedestrian count (0-100, represented as green)
happened in the institutional district and areas with blank walls. The areas
Methods with the 2nd lowest count (100-200, yellow) are low- to medium-intensity
• Counting: pedestrians on streets are counted for ten minutes land use areas with a random mix of detached housing and small retails.
starting at 5pm on a weekday, three streets per day (5-5:10,
5:15-5:25, 5:30-5:40 respectively).
• Measuring the sidewalk dimensions and noting where continuity
breaks.
• Photographing: manipulating the aperture to magnify texture
and detail of the sidewalks.
Continuity & Spaciousness
The sidewalks represented as blue are ones marked with uninterrupted
continuity and good width (1.5 meters and above). The sidewalks denoted in
pink are interrupted in part, or not wide enough (below 1.5 meters), or both.
The sidewalks marked in dashed red lines are not continuous or unpaved.
Annotated maps, sketches, photographs
Design guidance
The study made the following recommendations. The brown sidewalks are
those in the waterfront and old urban core, so should be designed to
enhance interconnectivity to facilitate porous pedestrian flow. The orange
sidewalks are to link the new commercial street, characterized by shops,
stores, and eateries, with the waterfront to the north, thus strengthening
the emerging axiality. Pink are sidewalks in medium- to low-density areas,
so should be de-cluttered and tree-lined so as to animate the
neighborhoods. Yellow are the sidewalks to be constructed. The overall
global structure is to be achieved by interconnectivity and safe crossing at
junctions.
Napong Rugkhapan ￨ 2

4. LAEM NGOP, THAILAND
Landscape and environmental design
for stormwater management
Context
• A coastal town in eastern Thailand. Size: 36 sq.km.
• High amount of stormwater runoff during raining seasons.
• Poor quality of canal water near fishing villages.
Project Aims
• To provide cost-effective alternative solutions to stormwater
management for a coastal town by introducing nonstructural
measures such as landscape and environmental design. Conceptual masterplan
• To reduce pressure on the town’s drainage infrastructure.
• To provide guidelines for environmental management for Farmlands
Riparian Restoration: section view
deteriorating canal water quality. Zone 1: grassland
Zone 2: bushes/shrubs
Principles Zone 3: canopy trees
• Ecological cohesion: encourages landscaped corridor of road-
side swales and trees to help absorb runoff stormwater; protect
soil surfaces; facilitate migration and flow of biodiversity.
• Material: encourages use of locally-sourced and pervious
farmlands Buffer Type 1: farmlands
surfaces for runoff to easily filter through.
Fishing village
• Vitality: revitalizes community with network of tree-lined
streetscape and rain gardens maximizing absorbent surfaces.
Type 2: Fishing village
Canal
Canal and riparian restoration
Phase I: national highway
Phase II: feeder roads Design framework: swales and landscaped corridors, phase I and phase II Town center concept plan: green infrastructure
Napong Rugkhapan ￨ 3

5. English Deprivation Indices 2007
Discussing correlations
The project’s summary
Using London as a case study, the report looks at a number of
domains in the English Deprivation Indices 2007 and their score
mappings: Employment, Education, and Health. Rather than
trying to establish a causation between two or more indices of
Deprivation, the report shows that the relationship is more
complex and not necessarily bivariate (and in fact,
multivariate most of the time). That is, while it is relatively safe
to say that Employment Deprivation (map 1) reflects Income
Deprivation (map 4) (considering employment as a main
source of income), it is much trickier to conclude that 1 2
Education Deprivation (map 2) causes Employment
Deprivation (map 1). Working through different domain-
pairings, the report attempts to debunk complex realities by
identifying the spurious correlations. The report concludes that,
while one Deprivation domain is not directly caused by
another, the existence of two or more Deprivation domains in
a given area points to other intervening factors at work e.g.
the geography of ethnicity and ethnic diversity index (map 5).
3
4
5
6
Napong Rugkhapan ￨ 4

6. SINGAPORE IN ELEVATIONS
The project’s statement
The project photographed building elevations in three By taking each building out of context and
areas in Singapore: Chinatown, Tanjong Pagar, and Joo rearranged one next to another in a streetscape
Chiat to study the form and pattern of Singapore’s early elevation, the project aims at augmenting the
20th century settlements: the shophouse. Divided by the sense of adjacency and immediacy known of
part wall, the shophouse is an earlier form of mix-used every shophouse regardless of their provenance.
development housing a shop on the ground floor and a Likewise, by digitally juxtaposing different
lodging on the top floor. Although eclectic in epochal styles, the images contrast the
ornamentation, these row houses are otherwise uniform; ephemeral fashion with the more tenacious form
two-to-three storey tall, narrow front with a covered and function.
walkway that function as a public space unifying the
edifices in the same block.
Napong Rugkhapan ￨ 5

7. BUILT ENVIRONMENT:
PATTERN & ORDER
The project’s statement
The project explored pattern and order as a distinctively
and innately human activity in the built environment of
Turin, Italy. Pattern is an organization of units and thus
requires a degree of order and the repetition of such
order. Patterning and ordering is our attempt to make
artifacts identifiable, comprehensible, thus manipulable.
By the same toke, the physical built environment, as a
man-made creation is one reflection of human tendency
to reinstate an order that’s not only functional and
utilitarian, but also cognitive.
Napong Rugkhapan ￨ 6

8. SAIGON ON FOOT
The project’s statement
The project documented four recurring themes frequently
encountered in the public realm – streets and sidewalks –
during a daytime walking tour of Saigon, Vietnam. The
themes are Congregation, Backstreets, Texture, and
Crossing. The photographs are an attempt to capture the
senses and dynamism of Saigon on November 23, 2010.
Backstreets Texture
Congregation Crossing
Napong Rugkhapan ￨ 7

9. SKETCHES & DRAWINGS
Napong Rugkhapan ￨ 8

10. Conceptual Photomontage
Possibilities for waterfront revitalization
Napong Rugkhapan ￨ 9