Chak Phupha Su Maha Nathee Park is a 41,600 sqm botanical space commemorating the 90th Birthday of HM Queen Sirikit, the Queen Mother. By integrating plant species hand-planted by Her Majesty across Thailand, the park creates a forest-based landscape of national significance. Beyond its commemorative purpose, it serves as an open-air learning environment where visitors can engage with forest and water systems through lived experience.
Rethinking The Future Awards 2026
Third Award | Landscape – Public (Built)
Project Name: Chak Phupha Su Maha Nathee Park
Category: Landscape – Public (Built)
Studio Name: Shma SoEn Company Limited
Design Team: Shma SoEn Company Limited
- Design Director: Namchai Saensupha
- Landscape Architect: Kwanchanok Kongchoksamai, Premhathai Charoenweerakul, Raviporn Boonyasai, and Panisara Kitisuthatham
- Horticulturist: Phanicha Woracharnrat
- Graphic Designer: Vipulapas Puapolthep
Area: 41,600 sq.m.
Year: 2024
Location: Bangkok, Thailand
Design Consultants:
- H.M. Queen Sirikit Park Foundation
- Bangkok Metropolitan Administration
- Forestry Specialist: Nopporn Nontapa
- Bird Conservation Society of Thailand: Dr. Boripat Siriaroonrat
- Urban Planning Specialist: Assoc. Prof. Panit Pujinda
- Brownfield redevelopment specialists: Angsana. Boonyobhas
Photography Credits: Nawin Deangnul
Render Credits: –
Other Credits:
- Architect: Creative Crews
- M&E: INFRA GROUP
- C&S Engineering: INFRA GROUP
- Signage & Content: AFTER DESIGN STUDIO
- Lighting Designer: BE LIT
The site is located between Queen Sirikit Park, Wachirabenchathat Park, and Chatuchak Park, one of Bangkok’s most significant clusters of green spaces. This position gives the site inherent potential to function as a connector within the city’s northern green network. The landscape design responds by organizing entrances and circulation routes that extend existing park systems. The main entrance along Kamphaeng Phet 3 Road strengthens access, allowing users to experience multiple parks as a connected urban landscape.
Design Strategies
The site was previously an impervious paved area used as a parking lot for the JJ Green Market. The design transforms this condition through integrated landscape strategies that restore ecological function while supporting public use. Concrete fragments from the original pavement were reused on site to construct landforms ranging from 1.00 to 3.50 meters in height. These hills, slopes, terraces, and low basins create spatial diversity while retaining and infiltrating stormwater before it enters the subsurface drainage system, supporting urban flood mitigation.
A forest-based botanical strategy structures planting throughout the park. More than 2,400 trees representing over 100 species are planted across upper canopy, mid-canopy, and understory tree layers, excluding shrubs and groundcover species. The planting combines 913 large transplanted trees, 955 medium-sized trees, and 561 young seedlings. This layered and multi-aged approach establishes immediate spatial structure while allowing canopy cover, habitat complexity, and ecological processes to develop progressively over time. Planting is conceived as a long-term climate strategy, supporting urban heat mitigation, carbon storage, and ecological resilience as the landscape matures.
Water acts as a primary organizing element of the park. A constructed wetland filters and improves water quality before feeding a linear stream running through the site. Treated through the wetland system, shallow stream zones, and designated water-play areas, the water allows people of all ages to safely engage with it, fostering everyday contact with natural processes. Universal accessibility is integrated throughout.
Impact
Chak Phupha Su Maha Nathee Park delivers environmental, social, and urban impacts beyond its boundaries by operating as connective green infrastructure within Bangkok’s northern park system. By linking adjacent parks through continuous circulation, the project reframes fragmented open spaces into a cohesive, legible urban landscape, encouraging everyday movement across an expanded green territory.
As the layered planting matures, ecological performance accumulates over time. A growing urban canopy improves microclimatic regulation, mitigates urban heat, and strengthens habitat capacity, while the wetland and water system enhance local stormwater management. By integrating ecological processes into everyday public use, the project demonstrates how landscape architecture can convert underutilized urban land into adaptive infrastructure that delivers cumulative environmental value alongside the city.
