How Could Construction Industry Revive Thai Economy? : Resurrection with Economic and Human Values from Design Professions

Abstract

After the economic crisis in 1997, Design, Construction, and related field like Real Estate DevelopmentIndustry have consistently been in a state of depression, with no sign of solid recovery on the horizon. At themoment, concerted efforts from various associations of Design, Construction, and Real Estate DevelopmentProfessions are being made to seek the assistance from the government in rejuvenating the Design & ConstructionIndustry through various measures. This paper is aiming to pinpoint what went wrong with the last Design &Construction boom period between 1987-1997. It is clear now that the last boom represents the investment drivencycle whereby value added aimed at was purely economic. The human values manifested in livable builtenvironment development and the increase of human capability of the professions involved were weak if not absent.
 The missing values were very critical in increasing the competitive capability of the country in terms of tourism,investment, and the export of design & service industry. Moreover, Thai people will also enjoy the better quality ofbuilt environments. As such, if measures are to be made to reactivate the Design and Construction Industry, deepthoughts and strategies are necessary for meaningful and successful outcomes with both economic and humanvalues. Short term thinking emphasizing on immediate survival would not suffice.