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pinballki

We have a single storey house on 100 talang-wah of land in Chiang Mai. It's 2.5 bedrooms and 1 bathroom and we really need some more space. Our big "wants" are a new master bedroom with en-suite (living with 1 bathroom isn't fun), a larger kitchen (completely re-fitted), and an office.

We've hired an architect to draw up some plans for us and after a reasonable consultation, he's drawn up some basic floor plans (no other elevations yet, though they will come) for building 2 two-storey extensions to the house. Everything seems reasonable to my untrained eye, however the first hurdle (of many, I'm sure) regards the amount of space we have to leave between the new build and any boundary walls. The architect has told us that the regulations state that there must be 2m of space. All well and good but this leaves us a little short of space in both the master bedroom and the new kitchen (which actually extends the current one). An extra meter of space in both extensions would make a lot of difference in my opinion but that would leave only a meter between the build and the boundary wall.

I'd add that we're on a corner plot, so if we were to extend the length of these extensions by 1m, it would (by chance) be on the sides of the building which face roads and not party walls. Even with this proposed change, 2m of space would still be in place on any party walls.

When I ask the Architect about this and suggest that the majority of the houses in the village seem to ignore this rule, building up very close to boundaries and party walls, he just smiles and shrugs a little. He obviously doesn't want to lead us as it's our choice, which leaves me in a quandary. My first instinct is to ensure that the build meets regulations, but more and more I seem to be entertaining the "fcuk it" school of "wisdom", where I just build the space I want to build, enjoy it, and then deal with problems if and when they come up in the future.

Worryingly, the architect seems to be dissuading us from submitting plans to be formally accepted by the government agency responsible for this stuff. Yes, I can hear the groans / guffaws already He seems to be saying that it's not necessary and as crazy wonderful as this country can be, I can't really believe that.

Since we've already engaged this guy to produce plans, I'm going to continue working with him - he's charging us 7k baht for the plans which seems reasonable to me (providing they're good plans of course, though I wouldn't know either way) but I feel like I want to get a second opinion if you like, i.e. get another architect, this time one recommended by people on TeakDoor and take it from there.

So...at long last (sorry for the lengthy post), here are my questions:

1. Can anyone recommend a good architect in Chiang Mai who you think would be suited for the job I'e described above?
2. Does anybody have any experience with these building regs (especially here in Chiang Mai) and have any insight they can offer?
3. Does anyone have any general comments to make, insight to add, advice to offer?

Obviously I'd be very interested to hear from anyone who has extended an existing house here in Chiang Mai.

Any advice or constructive comments would be gratefully appreciated.

Cheers.