FOREST PAVILION, THE FORESTIAS, Samut Prakan, Thailand

Happiness—a simple yet powerful manifesto advocated in The Forestias project of living close to nature with urban forest at the center of the development. The Forest Pavilion currently functions as the sales gallery, and it will be converted into a hub of residence society for gathering and sharing of joyful moments. It also serves as the entrance gateway to the broad urban forest zone, designed to support human delight accessible for all, which supports a variety of amenities and activities. The landscape design concept embraces three objectives: planting the future of symbiosis with nature, immersing the wilderness, and balancing the human activities and the growth of an urban forest. This dynamic landscape is a living paradise that will grow and evolve along with the current and future generations, and residents become a part of this evolving ecosystems, where they will have intimate connections with natural processes and memorable experience of the forest growth first-hand. The landscape design concept transforms and softens the rigid form of architectural grid leading to the natural-freeform of the central forest in order to connect people with nature. Consequently, the butterfly-shaped building, symbolizing a mixture of local culture and nature will be brought to life and revived to the delightful form of nature that echoes with simplified landscape elements. Visual effect was carefully studied to ensure varying forest natural scenes as visitors move across the floors. Moreover, the 5-meter tall waterfall feature and forest planting create a tranquil picturesque landscape. The arrangement of the signature trapezium stone units will be arrayed as seating, paths, and the main waterplay plaza. The team maximized the efficiency of spatial design by clustering functional spaces and introducing multi-layering landscape approach. Human controlled environment for social uses is limited to a certain extent, while putting the spotlight on the remaining natural softscape. The forest will continue to grow into a wilderness environment under the power of nature, so that all users will be immersed with a sense of nature, seeing and growing with the thriving forest, various ecosystems and local biodiversity. Moreover, a series of international environmental standards of SITES, WELL, and LEED have been thoroughly applied in design to reinforce users’ access to nature, use of bioswale and eco forest as green and blue infrastructure, carefully select paving materials, maximize energy efficiency, and implement low maintenance. In addition, flood and water-tolerant plants, effective sub-drain system and eco-forest berms have been incorporated to tackle the constraints of clayey and poor drain soil conditions. Residents will share mutual benefits with nature harmoniously, learning how to be part of nature and raising awareness to create a better and more sustainable world. Forest Pavilion is the ideal living sanctuary that demonstrates the simple happiness of a secured quality of dwelling within the natural urban forest. A good quality of environment will nurture the best quality of people, eventually leading to a kind and warm society, and last but not least the perfect place for intergeneration families to enjoy living in this happy development.