Arporn Chanchareonsook was a Thai student funded by the British Council to attend the Architectural Association’s Department of Tropical Architecture course in 1960-61, where she was the only female student in the year. Details of her subsequent career are not clear but she is recorded as taking a Masters degree in Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina in 1967, and is reported 1970 as presenting a conference paper, entitled ‘Housing at Bangkok- Thonburi’, under the auspices of the Municipality Planning Division. In 1980 she was responsible for a report for the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations on the ‘Development of Bangkok Metropolitan Region in the context of the National Development Plan.’ Certainly she appears to have rapidly progressed through the ranks of government service, being appointed Executive Director of the Department of City Planning, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, in 1986 - a role which she was to hold into the 1990s.

Sources

• Architectural Association Student Register, 1960-61. AA Archives
• Architectural Association Council Minutes, 20th February, 1961. AA Archives
• Architectural Association Journal, Vol. 76, No. 849 (February, 1961), p215
• Architectural Association Membership Lists, 1961, 1979.
• Chanchareonsook, A. ‘Development of Bangkok Metropolitan Region in the context of the National Development Plan’ United Nations, 1980.
• ‘Minutes of Discussions on Topographic Mapping of the Bangkok Metropolitan Area between the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration and the Japan International Cooperation Agency’, 1986. Accessed 6th June, 2025: https://openjicareport.jica.go.jp/pdf/10388528_02.pdf
• Chanchareonsook, A. ‘Information Systems Project for Urban Planning at the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration.’ In Information Systems for Government and Business: Trends, Issues, Challenges, 187-200. Nagoya, Japan: United Nations Centre for Regional Development, 1988.