Exporting creative design

Architects 49 is one leading Thai architectural firm that has expanded its business abroad and established Architects 49 International to run its business outside of Thailand.

The international company's associate director, Nitis Sthapitanonda, said the Architects 49 Group began its international business in 2006, when it designed a building in Singapore.

That job had received positive feedback from the Singapore customer and more foreign clients began noticing the firm's work. The company now has customers in several countries, including the Middle East - especially in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates - Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, and Burma.

The company has also established an office in Abu Dhabi.

Nitis said most of the customers had become interested in the company's work after visiting buildings it had designed, or receiving word-of-mouth recommendations from other customers.

"We cannot promote our projects. But most of our customers see our reference projects and realise they match their demand," he said.

Most of the firm's foreign design jobs are commercial and residential buildings. Senior architect Chana Sumpalung, a partner in Architect 49, said that over the past few years, Thai architects had become internationally recognised because their design quality was high enough to compete with others in Southeast Asia.

"We may be following Japanese architects, but now our architects have long experience and can complete in other countries in Southeast Asia. And we believe we'll develop our skills when we gain design experience on foreign projects," he said.

Nitis said when Thai architects had the opportunity to design projects abroad, they learned to develop their skills but also created unique designs that differentiated them from other architects in the region.

Present design trends involve modern styling that tempts designers to display pure materials. "Freedom" is the best way to describe current design themes, depending on demand from clients, but the modern style unique to Architect 49 uses textured surfaces showing pure materials, Nitis said.

He said the main point of the firm's expansion abroad was to add to its reference projects, so that customers would believe in the breadth of the firm's experience.

Siamese Architects Association president Thaweejit Chandrasakha said about 1,000 Thai architects now worked abroad - only 6.25 per cent of the 16,000 architects registered in Thailand - most of them in Singapore, Malaysia and Dubai.

Some five to 10 Thai architectural firms have already ventured abroad and have succeeded in designing buildings worth more than Bt40 billion.

They have generated income averaging Bt200 million a year.

Local architects have strong potential to broaden their horizons outside Thailand if the government backs them up like the governments of Singapore and Malaysia do for their architects, Thaweejit said.

The association has joined the Commerce Ministry to promote Thailand's architectural and creative services abroad by building brand awareness through the mass media rather than in trade shows.

"The nature of the design and creative business is different from consumer products, which can be introduced by opening booths at exhibitions and letting people sample the taste.

We have to present our designs and create an impression through our portfolio, so now we're preparing a road map to present architectural design work to the international market, especially the Middle East and Africa," Thaweejit said.