Design & Build

Design and Build in Abu Dhabi

LKYOOB is a multidisciplinary design and build studio based in Jumeirah 1, Dubai, taking commissions across the United Arab Emirates. In Abu Dhabi, that means one contract and one team, answerable from the first meeting on your plot to the day the keys change hands.

LKYOOB is a multidisciplinary design and build studio founded by Moosa Swaidan and based in Jumeirah 1, Dubai, taking commissions across the United Arab Emirates including Abu Dhabi. The studio delivers bespoke new villas, complete transformations of existing villas, and penthouse and apartment residences under a fully integrated model: architecture design, interior design, engineering, landscape design, project management, and execution oversight held within one team, with one point of control from the first meeting to handover. Every commission moves through five stages, from Vision & Lifestyle Study through Concept & Design Direction, Integrated Design Development, and Materials & Details to Execution & Delivery, with the same studio overseeing the construction it designed. In Abu Dhabi, LKYOOB works in communities including Saadiyat Island, Hidd Al Saadiyat, Jubail Island, Al Jurf, Yas Island, Al Raha Beach, Al Gurm, and Nurai Island, travelling to each plot from its Dubai studio.

One contract, one team, one point of control

LKYOOB is a design and build studio in the older sense of the phrase: the team that draws the residence is the team that stands over its construction. Founded by Moosa Swaidan, with design led by Mahra Al Ramlawi, the studio holds architecture design, interior design, engineering, landscape design, project management, and execution oversight within one practice. For a client building in Abu Dhabi, that means a single agreement, a single design intelligence, and one desk where every decision lands.

The studio is based in Jumeirah 1, Dubai, and takes commissions across the United Arab Emirates. For Abu Dhabi work, the road between the emirates is simply part of the studio's routine. The same designers who develop the drawings attend the site, and the same studio that signed the concept oversees the contractors who build it.

This continuity is the whole value of design and build. When one studio carries a residence from the first conversation to handover, nothing is lost in translation between a design firm and a building firm, and no decision is left unowned.

How does design and build work in Abu Dhabi?

Design and build in Abu Dhabi, as LKYOOB practises it, means one studio is responsible for both the design of a residence and the construction that follows, under one contract. There is no handover between an architect and a contractor, because both roles sit inside the same team.

A commission moves through five stages. The first four are design: a vision and lifestyle study, a concept, an integrated development in which all six disciplines resolve the residence together, and a materials and details stage in which every finish is specified. The design half of the commission is measured in months rather than weeks, and it finishes before any contractor prices a thing. The fifth stage is construction, overseen on site by the same studio.

From its Jumeirah 1 studio, LKYOOB manages an Abu Dhabi commission exactly as it manages one in Dubai. Early meetings are held on the plot and at the studio. During construction the team attends the site in Abu Dhabi on a steady rhythm, and the client continues to deal with one studio rather than a chain of firms.

Process

Five stages, one thread

Every LKYOOB commission in Abu Dhabi follows the same five stages, whether the plot sits on Saadiyat Island or at Al Jurf. The first four are design. The fifth is construction, overseen by the studio that designed it.

Vision & Lifestyle Study

The commission begins on the land: two to three weeks of studying how you live, what the Abu Dhabi plot offers, and what the residence must hold, before a single line is drawn. The first meetings take place on the plot itself and at the studio in Jumeirah 1.

Concept & Design Direction

The findings of the study become a design direction across four to six weeks: the massing, the arrival, the relationship between house, garden, and light. The concept arrives as one coherent proposition rather than a menu of alternatives.

Integrated Design Development

The longest design stage, running ten to sixteen weeks, in which architecture, interiors, engineering, and landscape are resolved together rather than in sequence. Because all six disciplines share one studio, conflicts are settled on paper in Dubai, not discovered later on site in Abu Dhabi.

Materials & Details

Materials, junctions and finishes are specified and documented across six to eight weeks. This is the stage that protects the build: when the drawings leave the studio, there is little left for a site to interpret.

Execution & Delivery

Construction, overseen by the same studio that designed the residence. The team travels from Dubai to the Abu Dhabi site throughout the build, holding the contractors to the drawings, and remains the client's single door to knock on until handover.

Where we work in Abu Dhabi

LKYOOB takes design and build commissions across Abu Dhabi's residential communities, on island plots and along the coast, and the model travels intact to each of them: one team and one contract, wherever the plot lies.

Saadiyat Island
Hidd Al Saadiyat
Jubail Island
Al Jurf
Yas Island
Al Raha Beach
Al Gurm
Nurai Island

Abu Dhabi asks particular things of a residence. The light is strong, the summer is long, and privacy is part of how a household lives, so a design and build commission here turns on orientation, shading, deep thresholds between glare and calm, and gardens that hold their coolness through the year. Because one studio carries architecture, landscape, and construction together, those decisions are made once, early, and held all the way through the build. Commissions are taken across the United Arab Emirates, carried by the same team the whole way.

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 does design and build cost in Abu Dhabi?

There is no honest single answer, because the cost of a design and build commission follows the decisions that shape it: the scale of the residence, the complexity of its architecture, the level of the material specification, the scope of the landscape, and the nature of the plot itself. Two villas of similar size on Saadiyat Island can sit far apart in cost for reasons that are visible in the drawings. For that reason, every LKYOOB commission is scoped individually, after the Vision & Lifestyle Study has established what is actually being built.

What the integrated model does change is the shape of the risk. A fully resolved design protects a budget, because a decision made on paper costs a fraction of the same decision made on site. By the time construction begins, the residence has been settled across all six disciplines, which is precisely what the design and build model is for.

Why one integrated studio rather than separate firms

The conventional route to a villa in Abu Dhabi involves a chain: an architect, an interior designer, an engineer, a landscape designer, a project manager, and a contractor, each with their own agreement, their own drawings, and their own version of the design. Every joint in that chain is a place where intent can be lost and cost can grow.

LKYOOB was structured to remove the joints. Six disciplines work as one team from the first meeting, so the interiors are never retrofitted to the architecture and the engineering never arrives as a correction. The studio holds a Google rating of 4.4 from 42 client reviews, and the pattern within them is consistency: one team, answerable from beginning to end.

Frequently asked questions

How much does design and build cost in Abu Dhabi?

Every LKYOOB commission is scoped individually, so the studio does not publish standard figures. Cost follows the scale of the residence, the complexity of its architecture, the material specification, and the plot. What the model assures is that the residence is settled in the drawings first, where changes are cheap, and that one studio remains answerable for the outcome.

How long do the design stages take?

From the first study to fully detailed drawings usually spans six to eight months. Construction then follows as the fifth stage, watched by the people who drew it, with its length set by the scale and complexity of each residence.

Does LKYOOB have an office in Abu Dhabi?

No. The studio is based in Jumeirah 1, Dubai, and takes commissions across the United Arab Emirates. For Abu Dhabi work, meetings are held on the plot and at the Dubai studio, and the team attends the site throughout design and construction. The journey between the two cities is ours to make, not yours to notice.

Which Abu Dhabi communities does LKYOOB work in?

Commissions come from across Abu Dhabi, from Saadiyat and its Hidd through Jubail, Al Jurf, Yas and Al Raha to Al Gurm and Nurai. A plot elsewhere in the emirate follows the same path.

Does LKYOOB only take on new builds?

No. Existing villas are remade end to end alongside new builds, and penthouse and apartment residences move through the same five stages with the same people.

Who oversees construction under a design and build contract?

The same studio that designed the residence. Execution oversight is one of LKYOOB's six in-house disciplines, so during construction the designers' own team stands over the contractors, holds the work to the drawings, and stays answerable to the client until handover.

If you are considering a residence in Abu Dhabi, we would be glad to hear how you want to live in it. The first conversation can take place on your plot or at the studio in Jumeirah 1, whichever suits you.

Begin a conversation with the studio in Jumeirah.