But quite possibly this "southeast" connotation runs deeper and is synonymous with Jambudvida (Chomphuthawip). If this is the case, then another two-day symposium would be necessary in order to cover the subject. Since this is not the start of a symposium, but rather the closing of one, I will merely mention that Jambudvida is the landmass in the southeastern corner of the Mahayana Buddhist cosmography, which consists of rings of continents and oceans, seven in all, presided over by Mount Meru in the centre. There are four such corner land masses. The other three are in the southwest, northwest and northeast, and represent the "parallel" worlds. The land in the southeast, however, is our own, in spite of the many mutations of life forms that we relegate to mythology. The cosmography referred to reflects an attempt to understand the environment on a cosmic scale, and the basic harmonics of nature that life and the built environment should follow. It meant that ritual, art, architecture and urban planning had to be in harmony and reverberate with these harmonics. To counter nature was unthinkable for architects and planners of the old world. Of course, in parallel to the cosmic reverberation, the cities that they planned also had to "work": they had to have water supply and drainage systems, transportation networks, moats and walls, etc.

The above components conjoined beautifully in the planning of Angkor Thom. The city was a cosmological model on a grand scale and, at the same time, a huge hydraulic machine diverting and regulating water from a nearby river for storage, consumption, transportation and agriculture, all operated by the forces of nature.

In contrast, much present-day town planning adopts a myopic parameter and pays little respect to nature, let alone Nature in the Platonic or Hindu-Buddhist sense. Of course, implementation has very little to do with planners anyway, the profession being often compromised by politicians who in the end carry out their own "planning". I refer in particular to Suvarnabhumi, the title of our seminar and the name of the new airport and its associated "new town", which was unfortunately marketed pre-emptively under the name of aerotropolis, leading to speculation and land grabs. The Suvarnabhumi development in Cobra Swamp is the sum total of everything that should not have been done. But because it has been done, we have to do our planning in light of its reality. Nonetheless, nature was substantially sidelined when the project to develop the area started. Huge investments in infrastructure work became necessary, mainly as corrective measures in an area that is basically a 5,200-sq-km lake. It also meant building on top of the worst subsoil conditions, and a watery terrain that will eventually be three metres below the mean sea level. This event is projected to take place in three generations' time and the factors involved are global warming and rising seas, and the subsidence of the swamp.

As architects, planners and engineers, we can of course do "damage-control" or even override the problems referred to, at a cost.

An example of such a cost concerns the new canal under construction to mechanically drain Cobra Swamp, which was made worse by the shrinking of the flood-retention area due to the increase in land fill in the area.

For three months of the year, starting in September, flood water from the North and Northeast arrives in the Central Plain to coincide with the annual sea rise. Natural drainage then becomes impossible, and a huge body of water around Bangkok has to remain in place until the sea level subsides in December. Cobra Swamp acted as a natural water retention area on the east side of Bangkok, modulating the flow of water into the sea of its own accord.

The development around the new airport will negate much of the above natural pattern.

Superimposed on the latter will be land-based infrastructure, transportation networks, facilities, housing and logistics related to the airport, which, all told, will involve over two million people who have to work and live there under constant noise and pollution from jet emissions and the threat of air disaster.

The new canal to drain Cobra Swamp is 78 metres wide and 10.5 kilometres long and is designed to pump water at a rate of up to 100 cubic metres per second. As it crosses Sukhumvit Highway, this great body of water will be lifted up to the height of 12 metres in order to cross over the traffic and be discharged into the sea. Although the cost for the canal is Bt8.4 billion, the perpetual energy bill to lift water over the highway has not been calculated. (It is simply not in the planning terms of reference!)

Out-of-the-mill planners with a penchant for anthropology and philosophy occasionally come to my office to console themselves. We take note that in this country the last choice often becomes the first choice; that expanding Don Muang or Utapao, plus a 40-minute maglev [magnetic levitation] link, which I proposed in the Eighth National Development Plan, would have been a better investment strategy for both the airport and urban decentralisation. At this point, we might fret a little, thinking of the Shanghai Airport maglev, which will soon be extended to Hangzhou.

We might then speculate on the solution to the problem of an aerotropolis three metres below the sea. The solution presupposes a level of hydraulic and societal discipline that suited the Dutch over the centuries, but not the Thai psyche, which is anti-discipline and long-term planning. We would finally ask ourselves where our next re-incarnation will take us at three metres below the sea, three generations from now.

Prof Sumet Jumsai is a well-known international architect.

This is an excerpt from his closing speech at the recent International Symposium on Suvarnabhumi organised by a group of Thai universities led by Silpakorn University.

Sumet Jumsai