Firm Follows Feeling

Bangkok-based landscape architecture firm P Landscape emphasizes the human experience and feeling through contemporary integration of art, culture, and ecology

- Denny Mata

“Form follows feeling—a collective or cultural feeling,” answers Wannaporn ‘Pui’ Phornprapha, founder and managing director of P Landscape, when asked for her opinion on the statement, ‘Form follows feeling.’

“We come from a culture where function often follows form, and form follows spiritual functions,” she explains.

Phornprapha enjoys using nature as a medium for creating experiences. Her work concentrates on contemporary landscape architecture that reconciles art, ecology, and cultural heritage to maintain and enhance the built environment. P Landscape values the uniqueness of the cultural identity of the people and places they work with, and Phornprapha doesn’t mind when people fail to recognize P Landscape’s authorship so long as they enjoy the places her firm designs.

“The holistic and multidisciplinary nature of landscape architecture that integrates art, culture, ecology, social studies, and economy allows us as a practice to truly connect humans with nature,” the landscape architect explains. “This is a powerful thing.”

Running the firm

Phornprapha takes pride in her practice being “a platform that activates and empowers its staffto express their design ability.” P Landscape is home to 120 members from various backgrounds and disciplines, including the arts, design, and horticulture. The firm’s design process involves back-and-forth dialogue between the design team, clients, and other consultants. “Listening and understanding of the different voices are critical to the process. We interpret and integrate their philosophies, elements, and forms of culture and context into our designs.”