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Conventional stormwater management may cause long term environmental issues. Fortunately, Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) can manage stormwater more sustainably. However, the design examples of WSUD elements, such as rain gardens within the geographical and cultural context of Thailand are lacking. This study investigated the patterns of rain garden design suitable for urban areas in Chiang Mai and developed examples of rain garden design processes and prototypes in an urban context for Chiang Mai.  This research used the Research by design Method (RDM), which has great potential in bridging the gap between research and application. The researchers selected the site at the Faculty of Agriculture, Chiang Mai University. They designed 2 schematics of rain gardens with local Lanna plants. Then, they compared stormwater capacity with the existing site via the Natural Resources and Conservation Service (NRCS) Curve Number Method. The design results were evaluated by stakeholders and design experts to bridge the gaps between international standards and local contexts.   We found that 1) the west side of the site was most appropriate to develop the pilot project. 2) Both design schematics performed better than the original site. 3) Stakeholders and design experts see the potential of the site, but had concerns regarding its actual performance, maintenance, scale, and safety. This paper offers and provides an example of the rain garden design process which can be used as a baseline for future designs of rain garden and water sensitive urban designs.

Effective planning at the landscape scale is a difficult but crucial task. Modern landscape planning requires economic success, ecological resilience, and environmental justice. Thus, planners and designers must learn to use a deliberative approach in planning: an approach in which decisions are made with the common understanding of stakeholders. This notwithstanding, there is a lack of localized and site-specific design examples for deliberative planning. One of the lacking examples is agricultural research station, which is unique because it balances economic, academic, and public uses. This study used a Research-by-Design Method to explore deliberative planning for an agricultural research station in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Field surveys, interviews, and archival search were conducted for database. Design decisions were delivered via linear-combination suitability analysis. We found that the site was viewed differently by different sets of users. The basic and safety infrastructure was the top priority, and clear direction of governance was crucial to move the site forward in the future. This study was one of the first recorded attempts to design an agricultural research center via the Research-by-Design process. The method and results of the research contribute to the growing body of evidence to support the need of evidence-based design and planning for all sites.

Obesity is a prevalent health issue. Evidence suggests that the availability of urban nature may reduce the risks of obesity. However, several knowledge gaps remain. This study explores the relationships between the dose (distance, duration and frequency) of urban nature and demographic factors towards obesity risks among people in Thailand. A total of 111 participants in three urban and peri-urban nature locations answered a survey regarding their distance from green spaces, frequency of visits, and duration of their typical stay, as well as their socio-demographics, and waist-hip ratio (WHR). The results suggested that at least 1–2 h per typical visit to nature predicted low-risk WHR in women. Male participants are more likely to have a high-risk WHR. Increasing age predicted low-risk WHR. Spending more time in green spaces predicted lower odds of high-risk WHR, while distance did not predict the odds. This research is one of the first to study the relationship between time spent in nature and obesity, and one of the first nature and health studies conducted in Thailand. Given that Thailand is one of the countries most affected by obesity in Southeast Asia, this study is relevant and essential. Future research should explore the quality factors of the park with longer duration of stay.

Walking in nature provides several health benefits including restoring attention capacity. However, researchers do not know the extent to which the duration of green exercise affects attention restoration. This lack of evidence prevents designers and planners from effectively providing this nature’s co-benefit. This study tested the extent to which a view of nature and durations of nature while walking may impact attention restoration. 79 participants completed attentionally demanding tasks and walked on a treadmill for 15 minutes; they were randomly assigned 0, 1, 5, and 15-minute views of nature. Participants who saw nature during the walk had greater attentional score improvements. No difference was found among durations. This finding suggested that only one minute of nature in a fifteen-minute walk has a potential to restore attention. This implied that designers should focus on distributing urban nature into barren spaces before adding nature to the places which are already green. This study was one of the first that compared duration of contact with nature for differences in attention restoration. More studies should explore differences in attention restoration with greater ranges of duration to allow landscape designers and urban planners to effectively design cities to reap full co-benefits of green exercise.