Public Understanding and Opinion on Thai Wellbeing Standard

บทคัดย่อ

The idea of wellbeing is based on Abraham Maslow’s theory called “the Hierarchy of Needs” and Martin Seligman’s theory called “PERMA”. In Year 2021, the Thailand Green Building Institute (TGBI) issued the SOOK building standard as a design and evaluation criterion for buildings. Upon review, the researcher found that both theories and the standard were in conflict. Therefore, this research aims to investigate people’s perceptions of the standard and to identify which criteria are important to them. The research questions, therefore, focused on public understanding and opinions about the standard as well as the criteria considered most essential.  The researcher selected about 800 members who met the criteria from the Khon Design group as population and distributed online questionnaires. After 2 months with 122 participants, constituting approximately 15.25% of the total population which is considered a proper sample size. The poll results revealed that 91% knew its benefits, but 56.2% believed that the standard was merely a marketing tool. They merely devoted themselves to general items such as plants, safety, universal design, light, thermal comfort, ventilation, and noise, with percentages of 81%, 86.9%, 83.6%, 79.5%, 86.9%, 81.1%, and 78.7% respectively. Conversely, they exhibited less concern for certain aspects: 33.8% expressed awareness of the sense of place, 61.5% considered toxic materials, 50% were mindful of smoking control, and 57.4% were concerned about air leakage. Moreover, while the standard related to both architectural and engineering design, participants demonstrated more attention to architectural design aspects than to engineering systems.