Bangkok New Urban Agenda Through Urban Living Lab Model: Case Studies of Urban Studies Lab

In Thailand, the urban population reached 51.34% in 2020 (O’Neill, 2021). Like other megacities, the capital, Bangkok, faces immense urban and global challenges – aging society, climate change impacts, PM2.5 pollution, urban mobility, urban inequality, etc. – and the government cannot overcome these challenges alone. Most efforts to implement urban change in Bangkok come in the form of top-down policies or private-driven projects, and many are inefficient, lack adequate data, and fail to engage local communities. Moreover, academic research in the field of architecture and related fields often goes unnoticed by decision-makers, leading to a large gap between good urban policies and practical implementations for Bangkok’s urban development. One solution to this problem is the urban living lab concept, a model that aims to include academic experts, government agents, and private enterprises to work directly with urban communities to achieve more sustainable and equitable urban development. This paper introduces the urban living lab (ULL) model actively applied by Urban Studies Lab (USL), a team of diverse academic experts and professionals based in Bangkok, Thailand. The model places local communities as equal partners in the planning, design, and transformation of their cities, and strategically convenes a broad range of actors to test new methods of neighborhood-scale urban development. This focuses on co-creation aiming to expand the organizational capacity of the city, sharing the responsibility that falls on the government, and making a direct impact by changing urban policy, enhancing community power, applying practical and theoretical knowledge, and actively employing a bottom-up approach. By exploring example projects that have resulted from the ULL approach, including placemaking interventions, a social innovation hackathon, and an ongoing COVID-19 relief effort, the authors will demonstrate and evaluate the urban living lab concept as a new tool and mechanism for Bangkok and other cities to achieve the new urban agenda.