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According to previous projects, my definition of erotic is the random meeting that triggers the climax. So I focus on the shophouses around intersection point or the transport hub around Bangkok, where more than thousand of people pass by everyday. They all have their own destinations, but they have to pass this interchanging spot in order to reach their goal. Out of six places, I decide to make a comparison between Makkasan where many shophouses are dead, and Victory Monument where most of them are still active, to study the reason why these two places are different from each other.
The main characteristic of Makkasan station is the dead shophouses around the area. Although it is the connection between Airport Link, MRT, and ARL, people rarely use the facilities around there and more than fifty percent of the shophouses are closed down. Most of the people walking around this area come from the Airport Link and the MRT, but it depends on the schedule of the trains, so the area is not active all the time.
In contrast to the previous site, Victory Monument is extremely lively. There are people using this area all the time, from the BTS skywalk or even down on the road. From the BTS, they will go to bus stops that lead to many places in Bangkok. Apart from local buses, there are also vans that go to other provinces in Thailand.
One of the main reasons why the shophouses are more active in Victory Monument is the skywalk. Given shades and comfortable path, people are encouraged to walk there. There are also small vendors located along the skywalk. Although they are blocking the way, people still buy from them, and they have their own time of setting up the vendors until it becomes a routine. Another reason why shophouses are active is the shopping malls. There are three main shopping complex around that area. Moreover, the malls themselves are not high-end department store like Paragon or Emporium, but they are mostly local malls, where most of the stuff are affordable for office workers and students. Therefore, the shophouses around the malls can transform into local restaurant or cheap cloth stores, since its target is people with limited income, resulting in high number of customers everyday.
Another reason why there are less people in the Makkasan area is the number of available transportation. From Makkasan, people have only 18 options, including 14 buses, MRT, SRT, and two motorcycle stations, while in Victory Monument, they got 86 options, 82 different buses, and 4 motorcycle stations, excluding the vans that go to other provinces. Obviously, more people will use the area around Victory Monument, since it is a larger transport hub.
There are only 40,000 people who use the airport link daily, in addition with 240,000 from MRT, and 10,000 from SRT, the sum is still far from 600,000 people using the BTS. Apart from that, another major reason why people rarely use the airport link is the lack of facilities for tourists, and even the locals. For example, from MRT to airport link, there is no skywalk or underground path that people can use, instead they have to walk across the train track and one road in order to change the transportation. However, there is a proposed project of building a skywalk, which will be completed in April.
I decide to choose Makkasan as my site. Around this area, there are offices and schools, where most of the users from Airport Link and MRT go. There are also several hotels and apartments, including local restaurants as well. However, most of the shophouses there are not active, and some of them are only for residential purposes.
The circulation of people around the site follows the facilities around there. The peak hour is from 7am-9am, when students go to school, and office workers go to work, and around 5pm-7pm, when they all go back home. Another user at this time are people who come to eat at local restaurants, and most of them will use the MRT instead of the airport link.
According to the information above, I come up with possible programs that can be added to the site in order to make it more lively. Most of them are those required in hotels for tourists, since the main target is the young tourists with sense of adventure who travel by airport link.
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