Good Pattaya Architect story
A year ago I decided to have a music studio designed to be built seperate from my house here in Pattaya. Did my research on energy saving, and acoustic materials, then set about looking for an architect. Should be a simple job, one room of 10x9x3 meters. NOT! Three different architects told me it couldn't be built without massive steel girders, so they wouldn't design it. I guess the reason being the standard Thai room is app. 4x9, so anything larger had to have center columns, and I wanted a completely open spaced room, no columns or posts other than inside the walls.
The man whose company built my pool, did a fantastic job, on time, on budget, and heavy-duty constructed, gave me the name of his architect. By this time I had little hope, but called him nonetheless. His name is Nattaphong Maneerat, his "little name" is Fluke, (pronounced Fook), and when he showed up I was surprisingly hopeful immediately. A small built chap with a beaming smile, and a sharp mind and wit, he listened carefully to my description of what I wanted. Though he had never designed a room so large without center posts as far as I could tell, he immediately started drawing while he put his mind to the task. Within the hour, he had come up with a rough, quick design, but more importantly, had the structural problem of supporting the roof properly without center posts, solved. The next week he brought me a color print of the exterior design, just to get an idea if I liked the look. It was precisely as I had described it to him, so we agreed to do business. Two weeks later he brought a detailed plan, to which I made some minor changes. Off he went, this polite, effusively happy man, leaving me feeling very confident I had found an intelligent, dilligent, commitment honoring professional with whom it was a pleasure to do business with. Ten days later I had a detailed and precise 17 page architectural plan. He arranged with a structural engineer he works with, to get a structural engineer plan from. Two weeks later he brought that, all 24 pages of it.
As I wanted to do this all 100% legal, the next step was the Aw Bu Daw, which I had read would cost me a percentage of the construction budget. Not the case! Khun Fook took the plans to the official, and a week later my wife took a bottle of Johnny Walker to him as a pre thank you offering. It took 6 weeks to get the plan back all approved, but at no further costs. Khun Fook stayed in touch with the official all along, and picked up and delivered the approved plans for/to us.
It was, after dealing with many here who see farangs as a walking atm, a joy to work with this guy. He kept in constant touch, gave me what I asked for, honored all his commitments, and my costs from start to finish, for everything including the government approval, was B30,000. I have more upcoming building projects, and will gladly use Khun Fook for all of them. I give him an unconditional recommendation.
His email is flukealone@gmail.com, and flukealone@hotmail.com ph #s are 086-828-4565, fax is 038-706-371