TIME magazine recognises Bangkok's oddly shaped football fields as top invention of 2016

Respected US-publication TIME magazine has recognised a series of oddly shaped football fields in the Thai capital of Bangkok as one of the world’s top inventions of 2016.

The innovative sporting space, a collaboration between Thai real estate developer AP and advertising firm CJ Worx, took previously underused and spaces in the densely populated and impoverished neighbourhood of Khlong Toei (once unused or just places to dump rubbish) and transformed them into artificial football pitches.

Developed as part of the AP Think Space concept, the initiative aimed to provide recreational space while also improving community cohesion and channelled AP’s expertise in residential space design to give back to society.

The oddly shaped - L or zig zag-shaped - football pitches, show that that a football field is not necessarily limited to a regular rectangle.

Acknowledged as a world first and an innovative way to overcome traditional limits in space development through a different creative perspective, TIME magazine recognised AP and CJ Worx for creating a “valuable life space” that has been useful for everyone in the community.

Welcoming the recognition, Pattaraphurit Rungjaturapat, Deputy Chief Corporate Image Officer, AP (Thailand), stated “when talking about living in a community where there are a lot of people, many often think about the many problems like juvenile delinquency or life quality issues.

“During an annual internal discussion, we discussed ways and means to channel our expertise in space design into helping society so that people can live a better life.

“We ended up with the idea of designing something for the Khlong Toei community with emphasis on turning untended or useless areas into something productive.

“Many people wonder if a football field that is not in a rectangular shape is really playable. But since we agreed that a football field is what people in the community wanted, we considered that size and shape should not be an obstacle for us to build the field.

“The fact that TIME has selected (this) as one of 25 best inventions of 2016 is beyond our wildest imagination.

“But on top of everything, the paramount achievement of this project is that what we created can really meet the needs of the community because the heart of our design philosophy is the end-user - the people in the community - who benefited from the space we created. It is what we really intended to do just like the criteria TIME magazine used to select a best invention – it must make the world better."

Images: Representatives of AP and CJ Worx welcome their recognition from TIME (top), one of the oddly shaped football fields (middle) and TIME magazine's write-up (below).

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