(UCSI university)
Borderlands between Malaysia and Thailand
The thesis seeks to investigate Thailand’s and Malaysia’s geopolitical border in the Golok River. The problem with the borderline is that it was drawn with a ruler on the map and does not take into account the interaction with the physical world. It severed not only the community connection but also the human-river connection.
The local community has an informal border crossing at this location, and there is an officer immigration customs 400m away. From the beginning to the present, it has been due to the unit condition of the strong connection between these two communities. Despite the borderline that separates them, they share a strong bond in terms of language, culture, religion, lifestyle, and race. Because the official borders between these two countries is offset 50m from the river, the majority of the local community lives there as squatters. The local community is staying in a no man’s land also known as non-jurisdictional territory. Although this is a contentious issue, we architects must begin to shift our perception of the border between nations as a control line to one of opportunity. The architecture will be able to erase or rethink the line between the borders by building between them.
