Landscape Architects represented at the COP 26 Conference!
Message from Kotchakorn Voraakhom, IFLA Climate Change Working Group Chair
“As COP26 ended, I would like to conclude my journey and contribution in Glasgow to all of you who are with me in this journey.
Thank you all for your contribution to the IFLA Climate Action Commitment. Especially Pamela, our vice-chair of the climate change working group, is supposed to do the call out on Architect 2030 representing all of us.
IFLA is a signatory of the 1.5C Built Environment Communique - calling on all as government leaders to ramp up your Nationally Determined Contributions to stay within the 1.5 degree carbon budget to prevent further devastation to those like my home in Bangkok.
We as landscape architects, can help the world reach net-zero emissions faster, sooner, and in a more sustainable way. We cannot wait for national policy-makers to tackle climate change. Everyone has a role to play and landscape architects, the architects of the Earth, definitely do.”
Kotchakorn Voraakhom is a landscape architect from Thailand who works on building productive green public spaces that tackle climate change in urban dense areas and vulnerable communities. She created the first critical green infrastructure for Bangkok, the Chulalongkorn Centenary Park. Her complete design works also include, Thammasat Urban Farm Rooftop, a 36-acre urban farm rooftop featuring the biggest urban farming green roof in Asia, and the first bridge park across the river in any world capital, Chao Phraya Sky Park.
Voraakhom was awarded from UN climate change for Winners of the 2020 UN Global Climate Action Awards, Women for Results. She was featured in the 2019 “TIME 100 Next” list, one of 15 leading women fighting against climate change from TIME Magazine, BBC 100 Women 2020, and the “Green 30 for 2020” by Bloomberg.
Voraakhom received her Master’s in landscape architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and teach there as a design critic in Spring 2020. Currently, she is also a TED Fellow and an Echoing Green Fellow.
