Kotchakorn Voraakhom

Kotchakorn Voraakhom is a landscape architect from Thailand who works on building productive green public space that tackles climate change in dense urban areas and climate-vulnerable communities.

Voraakhom’s projects offer innovative examples of the important functional role landscape plays in cities.  Opened in 2017, Chulalongkorn Centenary Park is Bangkok’s first critical piece of green infrastructure to reduce urban flood risk. The park can collect, treat, and hold up to one million gallons of water with on-site water management, alleviating overwhelmed public sewage during heavy rainfall.   Thammasat Urban Rooftop Farm, Asia’s largest, was opened. Her design repurposed wasted rooftop space to address food and water scarcity in preparation for future climate challenges.  Chao Phraya Sky Park was realized. Once an inaccessible and incomplete sky railway, the old ruins are now whole, becoming the first recognized bridge park to cross a river in any capital city.

Voraakhom is the Chairwoman of the Climate Change Working Group of the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA).  In 2030 she was awarded the United Nations Global Climate Action Award. She has been featured in TIME 100 Next and Time Magazine’s list of 15 women fighting against climate change.  She was named BBC100 Women, the Green 30 for 2020 by Bloomberg. She is a TED Fellow, Echoing Green Climate Fellow, Atlantic Fellow, and Futurity Fellow from BMW Foundation. She taught and received her master’s in landscape architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.