Thai Team Wins Queens Plaza Design Contest
Muang Nork (The Thai Overseas Newspaper)
No: 186 December 2001 (monthly)
Two young Thai architects edged out 200 teams from 53 countries to
win
a US $10,000 (Bt442,000) prize awarded by Van Alen Institute.
The pair, Juthathip Techachumreon, 28, and Surachai Akekapobyotin,
31,
used their experience growing up in gridlocked Bangkok, a metropolis
infamous for horrendous traffic jams, to develop a more
people-friendly design for congested and noisy Queens Plaza in New
York City.
Now living and working as architects in New York City, Surachai said
that being Bangkokians gave them an advantage in their effort to
unravel Queens Plaza. "We're used to seeing bad traffic," he said.
Their design proposes a "media corridor" to connect the subway
stations, pedestrian ways and public spaces, and to give users a
passageway through which they can enter the plaza at JFK Commuter
Triangle. It also includes the concrete median on Queens Plaza North
as a wavy footpath flanked by shrubs and trees.
Institute director Ray Gastil said that the design would transform
over-crowded Queen Plaza into an attractive complex of merchant
spaces, art and greenery. Walking through the corridor would be like
touring a tasteful Times Square, Gastil said.
"Queen Plaza, as the gateway between Manhattan and Queens, is the
most
significant commercial district and central for multicultural
activity," Surachai said.
The couple plans to spend their prize money building a dream house
back in Bangkok.
(Translated from Thai by Chaleampon Ritthichai)
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