| วัตถุประสงค์
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2.1 This research intends to explore the types, the nature, the use and the transformation of Thai public spaces, in both their conceptual and perceptual aspects. It aims to investigate the changes within the dynamic of Thai public spaces. Using the Rattanakosin Ancient City as a ground for investigation about Thai public space, this inquiry focuses on its visible and non-visible manifestations, i.e. upon its practical, functional, material, as well as its representational and symbolic aspects. Addressing various examples from both the traditional and innovative ways of thinking and creating public spaces, the subject includes not only the physical use of the spaces, but also addresses the conceptual and the philosophical ground that underlie the birth of those spaces. Studying the nature of public spaces also suggests the relationship between space and meaning, form, image, human occupation as well as location. This research also aims to explore the overlapping nature of Thai private and public spaces, as well as the changes whose demands are brought about by socio-cultural as well as economic factors.
2.2 The nature of this subject also involves an investigation into the very concept of Thai public space; how do we understand and relate to the spatial construct and built environment within the public realm, what are the pretexts and criteria for our creation of Thai public space, whether symbolic or pragmatic. The subject also requires an understanding of similarities and differences between the Thai concept of public space and that of other traditions, both western and eastern. While there existed extensive studies on the physicality of Thai architecture, both the religious and the domestic, the private and the public, the philosophical and theoretical inquiry into the very concept of space that underlies all Thai spatial construct is still lacking. Only when we understand these issues, can we begin to understand the meaning of both private and public spaces as well as the changes that have occurred within them. Thus we can begin to explore the possibilities to "design" public spaces that belong to the Thai culture.
2.3 Endowed with historical, social and cultural significance, both the architecture and the public spaces of Rattanakosin Ancient City have inevitably been caught in the conflict of practical operation and symbolic representation, as well as the dichotomy between modernity and tradition, global forces and regional characteristic. Rattanakosin Ancient City has also been endowed with multiple architectural typologies, representing an ideal mixture of land-uses, functions, spaces, forms and appearances that have been transformed through time. It is supplied with sense of great diversities that could serve as typological examples of many "kinds" or "types" of public places. Thus, this research, while focusing on the nature, the use and the transformation of Thai public spaces, it will use the Rattanakosin Ancient City as a site for a theoretical discussion on the meaning, the implication and the various ways in which Thai public spaces have been shaped through various criteria.
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