Hippie Life : Agriculture in Traditional Music Township

Being known as a city with many traditional music genres related to agrarian society and a long history of traditional folk music, Suphanburi aims itself to be one of music metropolitans in UNESCO Creative City Network. 

Located in the agricultural area of Suphanburi where the folk wisdoms and the traditional music still influence people in the present days, the project introduces a “traditional music town” as the main theme of the community redevelopment in order to preserve its unique identity and reach the vision goal of Suphanburi. The village formerly grew rice, but currently relies mainly on sugarcane monoculture, which is typically cultivated by open burning, causing the environment to suffer with massive amounts of pollutions and contaminants. The lands are heavily destroyed to have more monoculture farming plots. The smog from the cultivation becomes one of Thailand’s major environmental problems. At the same time, the villagers also confront economic and social challenges from the oversupply of sugarcane and the yield decline.

To help mitigate the issues, this proposal aims to shift the community from monoculture farming practice into eco-friendly agriculture, while enhancing social bonding between communities through the suitable space for traditional performances. It proposes the cooperative living and farming that provide landscape as shared common spaces for the community, by reclustering the village to promote the wellbeing of people. This will create strong self-sufficient society, as well as the harmonious coexistence between human and nature, while preserve the local folk cultures and make people proud of their home.