Reinventing Nature

Before long, five towering pavilions resembling mountains will emerge from the tropical canopy of Thailand's Khao Lak-Lam Ru National Park. Eighteen months after the disaster that claimed the lives of over 5,000 of its citizens, the government's Tsunami Memorial Design Competition has been won by Disc-O Architecture, a consortium of Spanish architects, with local firm Naga Concepts. Arranged around a multilevel central square, the pavilions house a museum, learning center, restaurant, shops, amphitheater, and a memorial that features an artificial mangrove with one branch for each victim. The largest of the pavilions, at 100 feet, is the memorial, and also the only one covered by vegetation growing on an open steel framework. A light in the void under the peak will filter through the plants at night, forming a beacon. The other four structures feature a harlequinlike pattern of colors on their inverted conical roofs. In selecting the winning scheme, the jury commended the designers for creatively integrating an artificial piece of nature into the largely intact park, a relatively safe haven where people may acclimate themselves to the idea of living with unpredictable natural forces--an especially poignant gesture in an area flanked by beachfront that has been stripped down to bare soil by the tsunami.