Living over Water - Restorative Redevelopment of Devastated Ecocultural Landscapes - page 255

the mediation of vastly different scales promise conceptual, spatial, and material fru-
gality, a basis for efficiency much needed in development work. She believed that one
could use such a methodology to stimulate cooperation among separate development
projects within a community. Very often, these projects are developed by different
organizations (governmental, private, or nonprofit) that do not communicate in terms
of sharing resources and information that would otherwise minimize costs—not only
monetary costs, but also time, social, and environmental opportunity costs.
Syariffudin (2006) countered some of the concerns about the original ADB pro-
posal by attempting to reinvent what a modern floating village might look like in
her development of conceptual designs for the architectural transformation of the
Chong Khneas port area. The stilted houses here would be situated along the dry-
weather dirt road, which is itself closely parallel to the river to allow for boat navi-
gation (Figure 14.22). As in other floating villages, the basic building typologies
(Syariffudin 2006) would be houses on stilts or floating houses (Figure 14.23).
Access to the latter reflects an adaptive use of space according to the different sea-
sons (Figure 14.24). Houses would be divided into several parts for easy moving and
later add-ons, though sometimes what constitutes a “house” is simply a roof over a
large boat (Figure 14.25). Patios are important not only as social or functional space
(e.g., for washing, bathing, and processing fish) but also for circulation among proxi-
mal houses (Figure 14.26).
Syariffudin's (2006) thesis attempted to address the dual issue of landscape and
infrastructure through the mutual benefiting of one from the other. The earth dug
from the canal construction would be used as landfill to create the mounds upon
which an ecological park (as in chapter 13) would be sited. In addition to educational
facilities, Syariffudin envisioned a restored landscape which included flooded forests
for waterfowl and a treatment wetland into which wastewater would be discharged for
polishing (as in chapter 18). Other infrastructural elements such as bridges, retaining
walls, and steps became opportunities to create badly needed habitable spaces into
which the passenger port and a fish market (Figures 14.27 and 14.28), as well as a
wastewater treatment plant and operators' housing, could be inserted. Syariffudin's
designs are based on the proposition that multiple efficiencies could be achieved in
multilayering hybridization (Figure 14.29) that meshes traditional and untraditional
uses in close juxtaposition.
If at first these conceptual designs seem incongruous to the present situation, that
is the whole point. Siem Reap's high-end luxury hotels exist cheek-and-jowl with, but
completely ignore, the Cambodian housing (resembling slums to western eyes) situ-
ated about them. Syariffudin, a student from Southeast Asia herself, was interested
in opening a dialogue about how modern infrastructure could provide support to the
growing tourism industry of Siem Reap at the same time as not only considering but
also actually improving the living situations of the Chong Khneas residents. In this
light, tourism should neither be viewed with such extreme skepticism and contempt
as to pass up the opportunity for economic, cultural, and social developments, nor be
allowed to dominate a society to the point of exploiting local resources or undermin-
ing genuine cultural, environmental, and/or social progress.