Commercial · fitout and refurbishment
Fitout and refurbishment.
Office, workplace and commercial fitout, and refurbishment of buildings that are still occupied, across South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales.
The premise
A fitout is a building project inside somebody else’s building.
The base building sets the ceiling on what your fitout can be, and the lease sets the rules for how you get there. Both are usually read too late.
Nearly everything that goes wrong on a commercial fitout traces to one of two documents nobody read carefully at the start: the lease, and the base building services capacity. The lease governs approvals, hours, insurances, and the make-good you are creating today. The base building governs whether the air conditioning can actually serve the density you have designed, whether there is spare electrical capacity in the riser, and whether the sprinkler layout suits the ceiling you want.
We read both before we price. It is not a value-add; it is the only way the price means anything.
What decides it
Four layers, and the order they have to be answered in.
A fitout is decided well below the finishes. Structure first, then six separate services disciplines, then whether any of it can physically reach the floor.
Capacity
The four questions we ask the building manager before we price.
Does the base building air conditioning have capacity for your density?
A floor designed for one person per fifteen square metres does not automatically serve one per eight. Supplementary cooling to meeting rooms, comms rooms and high-density zones is common, and it needs somewhere to reject heat, which is a landlord conversation, not a tenancy one.
Is there electrical capacity in the riser, and is it yours?
Spare capacity on a floor is not the same as capacity allocated to your tenancy. This is a written answer from the building manager, not an assumption from the switchboard schedule.
What does the fire and smoke system require if we change the ceiling?
Moving a ceiling changes sprinkler coverage and detection layout, and modifying a base building fire system is a certified change with its own approvals.
What are the access, hours and loading rules?
Lift bookings, dock windows, noisy-works hours and after-hours access govern how the programme is built. A tower with one goods lift and a two-hour daily window is a different project from a low-rise with a loading bay.
What is the make-good obligation you are creating?
Today’s fitout is tomorrow’s make-good. We record what is being installed over what, and photograph the condition before we start, because that record is worth real money at the end of the lease.
The lease and the base building capacity are the two documents that decide what your fitout can be.
Completed commercial fitout · library image
High rise
The multiplier is the number of people, not the number of square metres.
A tenancy on level twenty-three is not a ground-floor tenancy with a longer trip. Every services load moves with the occupant number, and the building the loads draw on is shared with everybody else in it. More people on the floor means more cooling, more outside air, more sanitary provision, more electrical load and a different egress calculation, all at once.
Then the material has to arrive. A goods lift has a door size, a car size and a booking sheet, and anything that will not fit needs a hoist or a crane and a road occupancy approval to go with it. We work out how the largest single item gets to the floor before we price the floor, because on a tower that answer sometimes changes the design.
Dock and delivery
Booking windows, vehicle size limits and the route from the dock to the lift.
Vertical transport
Goods lift dimensions and capacity, and what happens to anything that does not fit.
Hoist and cranage
External hoist or crane where a lift cannot serve, with the approvals that attach.
Occupancy
The one number that moves cooling, air, water, power and egress together.
Occupied buildings
Refurbishing around people who still have to work.
- Separation that actually separatesAcoustic hoarding, negative-pressure dust containment where required, and a boundary that building occupants can see and understand.
- Noisy works scheduled with the building, not against itCore drilling, demolition and fixing are booked into agreed windows and communicated to neighbouring tenancies in advance. Surprise noise is how a refurbishment becomes a building-wide complaint.
- Air quality and shared systemsDust in a return air path reaches tenancies that have nothing to do with your project. Filtration and isolation of the affected zones are planned, not improvised.
- One route in, one route outMaterial movement mapped through the building with protection to lift cars, lobbies and floor coverings. Damage to common areas is the fastest way to lose a landlord.
- Live services never assumed deadIsolation permits, tagged and tested, with a nominated person on both sides. In an occupied building an unplanned isolation reaches people who did not agree to any of this.
- Progressive handover where it helpsStaging a floor so occupation can begin in part of it is often cheaper for the client than a single completion. We price it as an option rather than assuming either way.
What we fit out
The work in this capability.
Workplace and office
Open plan, meeting and collaboration space, end-of-trip, comms rooms and the services that follow density.
Workplace · library image
Front of house and breakout
Reception, arrival, kitchen and client-facing space, where the finish tolerance is tighter and the joinery is the project.
Breakout and kitchen · library image
Refurbishment
Base building upgrades, services replacement, common areas and end-of-trip facilities in buildings that stay occupied throughout.
Refurbishment · library image
Strip-out and make-good
The other end of the same lease. Worth understanding before you sign, not after.
Stripped tenancy · library image
If you are the landlord
Common questions from building owners and managers.
Can you do base building upgrades while the building stays tenanted?
Yes, and it is most of what base building work is. Common areas, lifts, end-of-trip, services replacement and lobby refurbishment staged so that tenants keep their access, their air conditioning and their car parks.
Can you deliver a speculative fitout to attract a tenant?
Yes. A speculative suite has a different brief from a tenant fitout: it has to suit an unknown occupant, be photographed well and be finished to a budget that a leasing campaign can carry. We price it that way rather than as a scaled-down bespoke job.
Can you price make-good on our behalf when a tenant vacates?
Yes. We can scope and price reinstatement from the lease and the condition record so you have a defensible number to put to the outgoing tenant, and we can carry out the work afterwards if you want us to.
How do you protect our building during works?
Protection to lifts, lobbies and floor coverings, an agreed material route, and a condition record of the common areas before we start and after we finish. Damage to a common area is the fastest way for a contractor to lose a building.
Will you work to our contractor induction and permit systems?
Yes. Your building has its own induction, permit and impairment procedures and we work inside them rather than asking for exemptions.
Can you deal directly with our tenants?
Where you want us to. Works notices, access bookings and complaint handling can sit with us so your building manager is not the only channel.
If you are the tenant
Common questions on an office fitout.
How long does an office fitout take?
The construction is the shorter half. Landlord approval, long-lead joinery and switchboard items, and a services capacity answer from the building manager all sit in front of it. Tell us your move date and we will work backwards and tell you the last sensible day to commit.
What do we need before we can get a real price?
A floor plan, the lease, a headcount and a written answer from the building manager on air conditioning and electrical capacity. With those four we can price properly rather than price defensively.
Who pays for what between us and the landlord?
The lease decides it and the incentive negotiation usually adjusts it. We can mark up the scope against the lease so you can see which items you are arguing about before the negotiation rather than after.
Can we move in progressively?
Often, yes. Staged completion has to be designed into the programme and the occupation approvals considered from the start, so raise it early rather than near the end.
What happens to our old fitout?
Strip-out, reuse and disposal, with waste separated and tracked. Where you have a corporate reporting obligation the tracking becomes a deliverable rather than a courtesy.
What are we creating for the end of this lease?
Every fitout builds a make-good obligation. We record what is installed over what and photograph the condition before we start, because that record is worth real money to you in five or ten years.
Questions
Can you work while we stay in the space?
Often, yes, in stages, with separation and a programme built around your operating hours. We will price staged and single-stage options and tell you what the difference actually buys.
Who deals with the landlord?
We can. Landlord approvals, building manager coordination, induction, insurances and access bookings are part of the work and we would rather hold them than have them fall between parties.
Do you work with our designer?
Yes. Most fitouts arrive with an interior designer or workplace strategist already engaged, and that is the normal shape of the project.
How early should we involve a builder?
Before the design is finished. The base building constraints are discoverable in a week and they change design decisions that are expensive to revisit later.
What about after hours?
Some buildings require it for noisy or hot works. We price it explicitly rather than burying it, so you can see what the restriction is costing.
Send us the lease and the floor plan.
With those two documents and a call to your building manager, we can tell you what the base building will and will not support before you commit to a design.
Submit a project briefRelated
Where to go next.
- End of lease defit and make goodScoping, pricing and executing the obligation before the lease date decides it for you.
- Design and constructOne contract carrying both the design and the price.
- Office constructionWorkplace projects, from a single floor to a whole building.
- Commercial constructionOffices, retail, hospitality and institutional work, from fitout to new build.
- How we workHow we price, procure, administer and report, described as mechanisms you can test.