Commercial

Commercial Architecture and Fit-Out in Dubai

Most commercial buildings in Dubai are not towers. They are low-rise buildings of a few storeys: offices above retail, showrooms on a main road, a service block behind a compound. LKYOOB is registered with Dubai Municipality and classified to G+4, which is the range nearly all of that work sits within, and the practice designs, permits and fits out buildings inside it.

LKYOOB is a multidisciplinary design studio in Jumeirah 1, Dubai, working in commercial architecture and fit-out on low-rise buildings: offices, retail, showrooms, service blocks and mixed commercial premises. The practice is registered with Dubai Municipality in the name KYOOB ENGINEERING CONSULTANCY L.L.C, classified as Engineering Consultants with construction engineering services and architectural design consultancy to G+4, meaning a ground floor and four storeys above it. The service runs from the design of the building through the preparation and lodging of the permit file to the fit-out of the space inside it, whether that space is being built by its owner or taken by a tenant. Architecture design, interior design, engineering, landscape design, project management and execution oversight are held in one team, so a commercial client makes one appointment. Founded by Moosa Swaidan, the studio takes commissions in Dubai and across the United Arab Emirates.

What sits inside G+4, and why the classification decides the appointment

G+4 is a ground floor and four storeys above it. It is not a statement of ambition but a classification, the scale of building the register records a practice as competent to design, and it is checked before a submission is rather than after. A practice appointed outside what its registration permits does not fail at the drawings. It fails at the door, and the owner finds out at the point where time has already been committed.

Read against the commercial stock actually being built in Dubai, the range is wide. Low-rise office buildings, retail terraces, standalone showrooms, workshops and light industrial premises, staff accommodation and service blocks, clinics and small commercial premises within larger developments nearly all sit inside it. What sits outside it is the tower, which is a different market with different consultants.

So the first question a commercial client should settle is not stylistic. It is whether one appointed practice can carry the building, the engineering, the permit file and the interior, or whether the project will be assembled from an architect, an engineer, a separate approvals agent and a fit-out contractor, each holding one package and none holding the outcome.

Shell, fit-out, and which one you are actually buying

Commercial work divides along a line that residential work does not have, because the person who builds the building and the person who uses it are frequently not the same person. An owner or developer builds a shell. A tenant fits out a unit inside it. The two have different clients, different consents and often different consultants, and a great deal of commercial disappointment comes from a scope boundary that was assumed rather than read.

The practical consequences are ordinary but expensive. A tenant discovers the unit's cooling capacity was designed for an occupancy lighter than theirs, or that the incoming power will not carry their equipment, or that the landlord's consent process runs in front of the authority's and nobody allowed for it in the programme. Each of those is knowable before a lease is signed, by someone reading the building rather than the brochure.

LKYOOB can be appointed on either side of that line, and says clearly at the outset which side it is on. For an owner it designs and documents the building and carries the permit file. For an occupier it surveys what the unit actually offers, designs within it, obtains the consents the fit-out needs and supervises the work. What does not change is that the drawings, the engineering and the site supervision come from one practice.

Commercial scopes on a low-rise building in Dubai, and what each one contains
Scope	What it covers	Who normally holds it
Design and permit	What it coversThe building designed and documented, and the file prepared and lodged with the authority that covers the plot.	Who normally holds itThe owner, through an appointed engineering consultant.
Shell and core	What it coversStructure, envelope, cores, primary services and common areas, handed over ready for an occupier to fit out.	Who normally holds itThe owner or developer.
Tenant fit-out	What it coversThe interior of a unit built for its occupier: partitions, finishes, services within the unit, signage and loose furniture.	Who normally holds itThe tenant, with the building owner's consent.
Fit-out approvals	What it coversThe consents a fit-out needs from the building owner or master developer and from the relevant authority before work starts.	Who normally holds itWhoever holds the fit-out, through their consultant.
Supervision and handover	What it coversInspection of the work against the approved drawings, testing and commissioning, and the closing of defects before occupation.	Who normally holds itThe appointed consultant.

Process

Five stages, read commercially

A commercial commission follows the same five stages as every other LKYOOB project. What changes is the measure applied at each one, because a commercial building answers to a business case as well as to a brief.

Vision & Lifestyle Study

The study is of the use and the plot together: what the building is for, who will occupy it and how, what the plot's regulations permit in footprint, height, parking and setbacks, and which authority and master developer the plot answers to. The constraints are established before anything is drawn against them.

Concept & Design Direction

Massing, floor plate, circulation, servicing and the character of the elevations are proposed together. A commercial plan is tested against efficiency as well as appearance, because the proportion of the floor that can actually be used is a business question and it is decided at concept.

Integrated Design Development

Structure, cooling, power, drainage, fire strategy, accessibility and vertical circulation are developed alongside the architecture into one coordinated set. Compliance is designed in at this stage rather than corrected at submission, which is the difference between one authority review and several.

Materials & Details

The envelope is detailed for this climate and for the maintenance the building will realistically receive, and the interior specification is set for commercial wear. The documentation is completed to the standard the authority expects and a contractor can build from without interpretation.

Execution & Delivery

The permit file is lodged and carried by the same practice, the contractor is appointed, and the work proceeds under the studio's own execution oversight. Fit-out follows the same discipline, and the building is tested, commissioned, snagged and handed over ready for occupation.

Where we are appointed

Commercial commissions sit alongside the residential districts the studio knows best, in the retail, office and service buildings that serve them and in the compounds behind them.

Each of these locations carries its own combination of authority, master developer and plot regulation, and the commercial rules are frequently stricter than the residential ones in the same district: parking counts, servicing access, signage consent, working hours and what a facade may do on a main road. Reading the right route first is part of the design work rather than an errand attached to the end of it. Beyond Dubai, commissions are taken across the United Arab Emirates, and the practice also works in the United States. How villa design works in each of Dubai's communities.

United States

The studio also works in the United States, in Texas and Florida. The team, the process and the standard of finish travel with the commission; what changes is the climate, the local codes and the way a house sits on its plot, and those are answered on their own terms.

Houston, Texas
Austin, Texas
Miami, Florida
Orlando, Florida

What moves the cost of a commercial project in Dubai?

The building's use moves it more than its area does. What the structure is being asked to span and carry, how much cooling and power the occupancy needs, what the facade is made of and how it is fixed, the extent of parking and servicing, and the standard the interior is finished to all sit above floor area in the order of influence. A showroom, an office floor and a service block of the same size are three different buildings once those are settled.

On a fit-out the decisive factor is usually the condition of what is being taken on, since adapting services that were designed for a different occupancy costs more than installing the right ones into a plain shell. What can be said without a figure is that both are decided early: the expensive commercial project is almost always the one that went to site or to lease before anybody read the building properly. Every appointment is scoped individually against the plot, the use and the specification.

One practice for design, permits and fit-out

The usual commercial arrangement puts the architecture in one office, the engineering in another, the approvals with an agent and the interior with a fit-out contractor. Each party answers for its own package, the coordination between them is the client's, and the gaps appear on site where they are most expensive. For a client whose interest is a building that opens and trades, that structure distributes effort well and responsibility badly.

LKYOOB holds the six disciplines in one team: architecture design, interior design, engineering, landscape design, project management and execution oversight, under founder and Chairman Moosa Swaidan with design led by Mahra Al Ramlawi. One appointment covers the design, the engineering, the permit file and the fit-out, and one practice is answerable from the first study to the day the building is occupied.

Frequently asked questions

What kinds of commercial buildings can LKYOOB design?

Buildings within the G+4 classification the practice is registered for, which is a ground floor and four storeys above it. In Dubai that covers low-rise office buildings, retail terraces, showrooms, workshops and light industrial premises, staff accommodation, service blocks and small commercial premises inside larger developments. Towers sit outside it and are a different market with different consultants, which the studio will say plainly rather than stretch.

Does LKYOOB do commercial fit-out as well as the building?

Yes, and either one on its own. The practice can design and permit a building, fit out a unit inside a building somebody else built, or carry both under a single appointment. Interior design, engineering, project management and execution oversight sit in the same team as the architecture, so the fit-out drawings and the site supervision come from one office rather than two.

We are taking a commercial lease. Can you review the unit before we sign?

That is the most useful moment to be appointed. A survey establishes what the unit genuinely offers: cooling capacity against your occupancy, incoming power against your equipment, drainage, extraction where it matters, fire provision, and the state of the landlord's own works. It also establishes what the fit-out approvals will require, which is frequently the part that moves an opening date.

Who prepares the permit application?

The practice does, itself. Registration with Dubai Municipality as an engineering consultancy is what permits a firm to lodge a building application, and an owner cannot open one personally. Because the same team produces the design and carries the file, authority comments are answered by the people who made the drawings rather than relayed between an agent and a designer who never meet.

Is a residential studio the right choice for a commercial building?

It depends on what is being asked for. For a tower, no. For a low-rise commercial building where the facade, the interior and the finish matter as much as the schedule, a practice that works to residential standards of detail is a reasonable choice, provided it also holds the engineering and the approvals. LKYOOB holds both, and says so with the register behind it.

Where is LKYOOB based, and where does it take commercial work?

LKYOOB works from Office 02, Dubai Marine Beach Resort, Jumeirah 1, Dubai. Commercial commissions are taken across Dubai and elsewhere in the United Arab Emirates, and the practice also works in the United States. A first meeting is most productive with the plot or lease plan, the intended use, and anything already drawn or submitted by anyone else.

Commercial projects are usually lost early, in the weeks when a plot is bought or a lease is signed without anybody reading the building. If you are at that point, or just past it, the studio in Jumeirah 1 would be glad to look at what you have before it becomes expensive to change.

Begin a conversation with the studio in Jumeirah.