Suzanne Croft

• MArch Architecture
• Understanding community resilience: The role of shared physical and social spaces in reducing risk and vulnerability within informal settlements in Bangkok.

Bangkok suffered extensive flooding in 2011, which impacted greatly on informal settlements already suffering social and economic hardship. This application was to fund a group fieldtrip to Bangkok to carry out ethnographic research assessing risk, vulnerability and resilience in two informal communities. I focussed on the physical and social aspects of ‘community’. How external and leftover spaces are currently utilised by residents and the potential of adaptation, through urban agriculture, to improve health, save money and potentially increase income through selling.  By adopting both verbal and visual communication methods this research looked at physical and social boundaries as an indicator of how the community defines itself.

Funding source: Newcastle University