Planning an office fit-out in Abu Dhabi

An office fit-out is different from a residential project in one way that changes everything else about it. There is a date, it is usually tied to a lease, and moving it costs real money.

That makes the planning stage worth more than it does on a villa, where a few weeks either way is an inconvenience rather than a rent bill.

Understand what you are taking on

Start with the condition of the space, because it decides the scope.

Shell and core means structure, facade, core services and often a raised floor and ceiling grid. Everything else is yours. It is a blank sheet, which is easier to plan and slower to finish.

A previously fitted floor looks like a head start and frequently is not. Someone else’s partition layout, their ceiling, their services distribution and their data cabling were designed around a business that was not yours. Stripping that out and adapting what remains can cost more than an empty floor, and it hides more surprises.

Either way, get the base build drawings from the landlord before you design anything. Where the structure sits, where the risers are, what the ceiling void actually contains, what the floor loading permits.

Approvals run on their own clock

There are usually two approval paths and they are sequential rather than parallel.

The building owner or managing agent approves against the building’s own rules. Those typically cover access to the ceiling void, floor loading, anything touching the facade, working hours, service lift booking, and how waste leaves the building. Some buildings maintain an approved contractor list, which is worth checking before you shortlist anyone.

The relevant authority approves anything affecting building services and safety, which on most fit-outs means the fire detection and suppression layout, mechanical changes and the electrical distribution.

Neither of these compresses because your lease starts. Establish both positions before you fix a completion date, and start the paperwork before the design is fully finished if the process allows a staged submission.

The services decide the ceiling, and the ceiling decides the look

This is the part clients are most often surprised by.

Above the ceiling tiles sit the air conditioning distribution, the sprinkler pipework, the fire detection, the lighting, the cable containment and often the structure itself. Every partition that goes in has to be coordinated with all of it, because a wall arriving under a sprinkler head or across a supply grille creates a problem that is expensive once the ceiling is closed.

Two consequences worth planning around. Ceiling features, coffers and changes of level are limited by what is in the void, so the ambitious ceiling in the concept needs checking against reality early. And every partition changes the air distribution, so a layout revision after the mechanical design is drawn means redrawing it.

The general rule from our fit-out page applies with more force here: anything routed inside a wall or above a ceiling has to be settled before that wall or ceiling closes.

Planning the floor

Density is the first number. How many people, at what desk size, with what allowance for meeting space, quiet rooms and circulation. Working backwards from a headcount to a layout usually reveals that a floor holds fewer people comfortably than a spreadsheet suggests.

Meeting rooms need more thought than their area implies. Acoustic separation is the common failure: a glazed meeting room looks open and transmits sound unless the glazing specification and the junctions above the ceiling and below the floor are handled properly. A partition that stops at the ceiling tile stops nothing acoustically.

Quiet space matters more in an open plan floor than the plan suggests. A few small enclosed rooms for calls take pressure off the meeting rooms and stop people using them as phone booths.

Storage is always underestimated. It is also the thing joinery solves well, because it can be built to the space rather than bought to a standard size.

Long-lead items

The ones that most often hold up an office fit-out are the ones ordered late because they seemed like details.

Anything made to measure, which usually means the joinery and the reception. Any imported stone or specialist finish. Glazed partition systems, which have their own lead time and cannot be adjusted much on site. Specialist lighting. And the data cabling and any active equipment, which are frequently outside the fit-out contract and therefore outside anyone’s programme unless someone insists otherwise.

Order these while the strip-out is happening, not when the trade that installs them is due.

Working in an occupied building

Most office fit-outs happen in buildings where other people are working.

That brings constraints worth pricing honestly at the start: noisy work restricted to certain hours, service lift bookings, protection of common areas, waste removal at set times, and security clearance for site staff. None is difficult. All of them affect how long the work takes, and a programme that ignores them is fiction.

Handover

Agree what handover means before the work starts. A snagging list, a period to close it, and clarity on what happens to the defects period after that. And agree in writing who can approve a variation on site, because on a live job someone will always be asked to make a decision quickly.

Where to start

Send the floor plan, the base build drawings if you have them, and a headcount. That is enough for a first conversation about whether the space does what you need.

If you are a consultant or a developer rather than the end occupier, the trade route covers approvals, capacity and how we work with a design team already appointed.