In 2003 he started the Centre for Architecture and Human Rights in Bangkok. Living in the city, he says, has given him the opportunity to expand on some personal goals about improving the relevance of architecture to basic needs and human rights.
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He continues to work on this through annual community workshop studios in the slums of Bangkok and architectural programmes for slum kids.
Serving the community
Architects concentrate too often on the design of a project, says Graeme, rather than understanding the needs of the community it aims to serve. He uses the construction of dams as an example.
The Three Gorges Dam in China has displaced millions of people. Would this have been an issue when engineers and architects first got together to draw up the initial plans? According to him, the needs and rights of the local people should be an automatic part of the planning process.
Portable school
Graeme is currently working on a 'portable school'. The idea was formed during the construction of Bangkok's state of the art new international airport, the airport that made international headlines in late 2008 when thousands of anti-government protestors took it over, closing it off to travelers at the start of the tourist high season.
Twenty thousand construction workers, the majority of them migrant workers, were brought in to build the airport. They were housed in temporary accommodation on the outskirts of the site, many of them bringing their entire family. It's estimated that two thousand children were also on the site but when Graeme enquired about a school he was told there wasn't one.
A construction site is not the safest place, even for adults, let alone children, he says. It spurred him into action with a dual aim, to get them out of danger and to give them a basic education. The portable school is due soon and will move with the camps from one project to another.
Graeme Bristol really is an architect with a strong social conscience and the energy to put it into practice.
Tags: architecture, Bangkok, Centre for Architecture and Human Rights, Graeme Bristol, human rights, Three Gorges Dam