Office Fit Out Process | From Design to Project Handover
For businesses that don’t regularly undertake commercial property projects, an office fit out can initially appear complicated.
Designers, contractors, landlords, building control, furniture suppliers, IT specialists and numerous trades can all become involved.
A good fit out process brings those individual threads together into one coherent project.
Here’s how we approach it.
Stage 1: Understanding the brief
Before drawing anything, understand the business.
How many people use the workplace?
How do teams interact?
What’s frustrating about the existing office?
What works well?
How might the business change?
What impression should the workplace create for employees, visitors and customers?
The answers provide the foundations for the design.
Stage 2: Surveying the space
The next stage is understanding the building itself.
Accurate information about dimensions, services and existing conditions is essential.
This is also an opportunity to identify constraints early.
Discovering a problem while it is still a line on a drawing is generally considerably easier than discovering it once construction has started.
Stage 3: Space planning
Now the puzzle begins.
Space planning considers how people, departments, circulation and facilities should relate to one another.
Rather than simply fitting the maximum number of desks into a floorplate, consider the variety of activities taking place throughout a working day.
That might mean incorporating:
- focused working areas
- formal meeting rooms
- informal collaboration spaces
- video-call rooms
- breakout areas
- kitchens and social spaces
- storage
- reception and visitor facilities.
Contemporary guidance from the British Council for Offices similarly highlights flexible space, human-centric design, wellbeing and technology as important considerations in modern fit outs. BCO
Stage 4: Developing the design
Once the fundamental layout works, the character of the workplace can develop.
Materials, colours, finishes, lighting, furniture, acoustic treatments and branding start to turn the plan into an environment.
Visualisations can be particularly useful at this stage because not everyone finds it easy to translate a two-dimensional plan into a mental picture of the finished space.
Stage 5: Cost planning
Cost shouldn’t suddenly appear at the end of the design process.
At 360, we believe design and cost need to develop alongside one another.
That gives the client an opportunity to understand where the budget is being allocated and make informed choices before work begins.
Stage 6: Technical design
The creative concept now has to become buildable.
Detailed information may be required for partitioning, ceilings, flooring, joinery, electrical installations, lighting, mechanical services, data, furniture and other elements.
This is where design intent meets technical reality.
Stage 7: Approvals
Depending on the building and proposed works, various approvals may be necessary.
These could include landlord consent, Building Regulations requirements and fire-safety considerations.
Government guidance confirms that building work to existing commercial premises must comply with applicable Building Regulations, including designing appropriate fire safety into alterations. GOV.UK
The exact requirements depend upon the project, so they should be identified early rather than treated as an afterthought.
Stage 8: Construction
With the design, costs and programme agreed, the physical transformation begins.
Site management becomes crucial.
Different trades need to work in sequence, materials need to arrive at the correct time, quality needs to be controlled and progress monitored against the programme.
Good communication throughout this period is invaluable.
Stage 9: Furniture and finishing
Furniture has a huge influence on how the completed office feels and performs.
Desks and chairs are only part of the story.
Meeting, collaboration, touchdown, breakout and social spaces each require furniture appropriate to how they’re intended to be used.
Furniture installation, graphics, planting and final decorative elements are often when the design really clicks into place.
Stage 10: Handover
Completion shouldn’t feel like a contractor disappearing through the door with the keys still warm.
A structured handover should confirm that works are complete, information is provided and any outstanding items are identified.
The objective is simple:
a workplace ready for people to use.
One journey rather than separate services
Design, costing, technical coordination, fit out and furniture are interconnected.
Treating them as one coordinated journey can simplify the process for the client and help preserve the original design intent through to completion.
