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Office fit-out
in Dubai
Full fit-out and refurbishment in towers — partitions, ceilings, MEP, data, acoustics and joinery, sequenced around the neighbours who are still trading.
Scope of works
Offices in towers rarely stop trading during works. The programme is built around the neighbours: noisy trades in agreed windows, deliveries in booked slots, protection down before the first tool comes out.
Glazed and solid partitions, acoustic ratings where the lease demands them, suspended and exposed ceiling systems.
HVAC modification, power, lighting, structured cabling and containment — coordinated so the ceiling closes once.
Absorption where meetings happen, isolation where they must not be heard. Specified, not decorated.
Reception, storage walls, workstations and tea points built to drawing.
Building management submission, method statements, permits to work, lift and loading bookings.
Office fit-out in Dubai, from the inside
The part that decides your date is rarely the part on the mood board.
The building decides your programme, not the drawing
An office fit-out in Dubai is rarely a construction problem. The partitions, the ceiling and the joinery are the easy part. What decides whether you open on the date is the tower: which hours the building management allows noisy work, how many lifts you are given and when, where the hoarding goes, how long the induction takes for every man who walks on site.
That is why the first thing we do is not price the drawing. We read the building's fit-out rules, book the survey, and only then build the programme backwards from your handover date. A contractor who quotes before reading the tower's rules is quoting a fantasy — and the weeks come out of your rent.
The approval chain, in the order it actually happens
Landlord or building management first: fit-out application, contractor details, insurances, refundable deposit. Then the authority — in JLT that is DMCC, in TECOM-governed districts the DDA, on the mainland Dubai Municipality. Civil Defence sits across all of them wherever the fire strategy, the sprinklers or the detection layout change.
Every one of those queues has its own drawing set and its own reviewer. We submit them ourselves, with a named delegate registered with Civil Defence, because a submission that comes back for a redraw costs you a week you never planned for.
What actually moves the price
Four things, in order of weight. First, whether the shell is raw or you are stripping out someone else's fit-out — demolition, disposal and making good are invisible on a mood board and very visible on an invoice. Second, MEP: moving an FCU, adding fresh air, upgrading the DB or pulling new containment costs more than any finish you will choose.
Third, acoustics — glazed partitions to an honest acoustic rating cost multiples of the same partition specified by looks alone. Fourth, joinery: reception desks, storage walls and tea points are bespoke manufacture, and the drawings for them are the ones that hold up the factory.
Where office programmes slip, and what we do about it
Approvals, long-lead items and the ceiling. Approvals we run ourselves. Long-lead items — bespoke joinery, specific glazing systems, imported furniture — we identify at week one and order against a deposit rather than against a full design freeze, so the factory is running while the drawings are still being detailed.
The ceiling is the classic. It closes once. If the electrical first fix, the data containment, the sprinkler drops, the FCU and the fire detection are not coordinated before it goes up, it comes down again, and taking a ceiling down twice is how a four-week job becomes a seven-week job.
Offices we have delivered
Send the drawings, or just the address.
We measure, check the services and tell you what the authority will require.
Questions we hear on every project
Can we keep working while you build?
Usually yes, if the office is big enough to zone. We phase the floor, screen the live side, and put the noisy trades into the hours building management allows. It lengthens the programme — we tell you by how much before you decide.
Do you handle the DMCC or DDA submission for our unit?
Yes. The submission, the method statements, the permits to work and the building management approvals are inside the contract, not billed as extras.
Our landlord wants the office back as a shell at the end of the lease.
Then the reinstatement obligation belongs in the design now. We record the shell condition before we start and build so that stripping back later does not mean rebuilding the ceiling and the services.
Can you work to our designer's drawings?
Yes. We build to a third-party design as readily as to our own — and we flag anything in it that will not pass building management or Civil Defence before it costs you a submission cycle.
How fast can you start?
A site visit within 24 hours of your message. On a build-only job with approved drawings, mobilisation is usually two weeks. On design and build, the approval stage sets the start date — and we tell you honestly what it will take.
Do you handle the authority approvals?
Yes, inside the contract: Municipality and food control for restaurants, the landlord manual and mall authority for retail, building management for offices, community NOCs for villas.
How is payment structured?
Staged against progress on site, with a retention held to the end of the defects period. Nothing is invoiced ahead of work completed.
What happens if the programme slips?
You get the revised programme the week it happens, with the reason and the recovery plan — not on handover day. Most slips are born in the approval queue, which is why we run it ourselves.
Do you work with our designer?
Yes. We build to a third-party design as readily as to our own, and we flag anything that will not pass approval or hold on site.
Who owns the drawings and approvals?
You do. As-builts, permits and warranties are handed over with the keys — nothing is withheld.