"Meen – Wichaya Chaingchit" — from a Thai architecture student who once had his work bullied, today he has risen to become a Senior Architect Designer at Zaha Hadid Architects and is one of the team behind the design of Al Maktoum Airport, a mega-project worth over 1.15 trillion baht, targeting a capacity of 260 million passengers per year — proving that the design once met with the question "Who would ever build this for you?" is now on its way to being built on a world stage.
Today (30 Aug.) has become yet another inspiring story on the internet, as the well-known page "หนูน้อยบนยอดเขาอันหนาวเหน็บ" ("Little One on the Freezing Mountain Peak") published the story of "Khun Meen" — Wichaya Chaingchit — a Thai architect who currently holds the position of Senior Architect Designer at the world-leading architecture firm Zaha Hadid Architects in London, England.
Khun Meen is one of the team members behind the winning concept design for the new passenger terminal of Al Maktoum International Airport in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The project was officially unveiled and approved for construction by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Ruler of Dubai, with a massive investment budget of 128 billion Dirham (AED) — equivalent to approximately 1.15 trillion Thai baht. The project aims to become the largest airport in the world, with a maximum capacity of 260 million passengers per year.
What makes this story even more impressive is that, looking back to 2016, while Khun Meen was still working in Thailand, he was publicly bullied in front of many people by a senior figure in the architecture circle with the words: "…designing like this — who would ever build it for you…"
Yet those words of ridicule on that day became the very driving force that pushed Khun Meen to relentlessly develop himself, until he was able to rise to the top tier of the global architecture world at Zaha Hadid Architects — proving that the designs that once existed only in his imagination not only have someone to build them, but are now a mega-project of global significance.
Meen, or Mr. Wichaya Chaingchit, is an alumnus of the Faculty of Architecture at King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang (KMITL), and received the Distinguished Alumni Award (Rising Star category) from KMITL in 2025.
Al Maktoum International Airport (Al Maktoum International Airport / Dubai World Central) has announced a new-phase expansion plan for its passenger terminal, intended to replace the existing Dubai Airport (DXB), with plans to expand to 5 runways and 400 concourse gates.
