Living over Water - Restorative Redevelopment of Devastated Ecocultural Landscapes - page 254

boat landing is moved along accordingly. When the lake is at its highest level, Phnom
Kraom is accessible by fishing, cargo, and passenger boats even though the road is
mostly submerged. During the dry season, the channel becomes nonnavigable for
most of its length and is chaotically congested with fishing boats, floating houses,
and tourist boats. Present also are medium-sized passenger boats (used by both locals
and tourists) that travel between Chong Khneas and both Phnom Penh (the capital of
the country) and Battambang (the industrial and second-largest city in Cambodia),
each about a six-hour journey away. Chong Khneas is a tourist attraction given its
proximity to Siem Reap and the Angkor ruins, and the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve
and bird sanctuary, and also because of its novelty as a floating village.
Chong Khneas has been the busy shipping port for the Angkor area since Khmer
times until the recent construction of new roads effectively put an end to the com-
modity shipping to and from Phnom Penh. Today the impromptu port has two
major activities (Poole 2005). One is as the major landing area for fish caught in the
northern part of the lake. Here fishermen arrive from small communities to trade
or sell their fish, the best of which goes straight to Thailand or even North America
(fifty thousand tons are exported from Cambodia each year). The other major role
of Chong Khneas is as the passenger terminal for foreign tourists arriving after the
leisurely and atmospheric six-hour trip from Phnom Penh. As Poole (2005) stated,
“With the growth of this sector, and the development of more luxurious ferries and
cruise vessels, once again the lure of Angkor is creating a port that is a crossroad for
international travelers.”
In 2002, the Asian Development Bank was interested in providing a multimillion-
dollar loan for the development of a modern harbor at Chong Khneas, the Chong
Khneas Environmental Improvement Project (CKEIP). The phenomenal flooding
patterns of the Tonle Sap have always impeded water transportation to and from the
city of Siem Reap. The movement of the shoreline by more than 4 km, corresponding
to water level fluctuations of as much as 10 m, has made a permanent port location
impossible. The new project proposed to dredge a canal from the lake to a permanent
harbor basin of constant accessibility that would be constructed at the foot of Phnom
Kroam hill. Here the dredged material would be used in a land reclamation project
upon which villagers will be resettled. Many, however, were concerned about the
impacts that such a massive intervention would create (Syariffudin 2006), including
some NGOs who were critical that it would accentuate environmental and social
problems by encouraging an influx of poor immigrants. As Poole (2005) again cau-
tions, “Unregulated development will bring with it greater risk to the Tonle Sap
ecosystem and therefore to the people living on it. The current floating village way
of life may not be with us for much longer.”
The ADB proposal was suspended in 2003 due to the concerns about its environ-
mental impacts. Nevertheless, the dire need for a port on the site, related not only
to the increasing level of tourism but also to fishery and trade needs, can be neither
overlooked nor denied. As a result, Syariffudin (2006) developed a conceptual design
proposal for her thesis that picked up where the ADB proposal left off. Inherent in
the architectural thesis project is the proposition that multiple efficiencies could be
achieved in multilayering hybridization. The meshing of architecture, landscape, and
infrastructure; the untraditional juxtaposition of different programs (uses); as well as