Project Management

Project Management for Private Villas in Dubai

Someone manages every villa built in Dubai, whether or not anyone is appointed to do it. Where the role is left unfilled it falls to the owner, who inherits a programme written by the contractor and a set of decisions nobody has added up. LKYOOB holds project management as one of its own disciplines, inside the practice that produced the drawings.

LKYOOB is a multidisciplinary design studio in Jumeirah 1, Dubai, providing construction project management for private villas as one of its own disciplines rather than as a service bought in from elsewhere. The scope covers the programme a build is measured against, the tender documents it is priced through, the appointment of a main contractor, supervision of the work on site against the approved drawings, the control of cost as the job proceeds, and the handover of a finished house. Project management sits inside one team with architecture design, interior design, engineering, landscape design and execution oversight, and the practice is registered with Dubai Municipality in the name KYOOB ENGINEERING CONSULTANCY L.L.C, classified to G+4, so it prepares and lodges its own authority documentation. Founded by Moosa Swaidan, with design led by Mahra Al Ramlawi, the studio manages commissions across Dubai's established communities, elsewhere in the United Arab Emirates and in the United States.

What project management actually covers on a private villa

Project management on a private house is the work of turning an approved design into instructions a contractor can follow, and then holding the contractor to them. It covers the programme, the documents the job is tendered on, the appointment itself, the inspection of work as it proceeds, the account of what has been spent and committed, and the closing of defects at the end. None of that is advisory. Each part is a decision somebody has to take and then answer for.

On most villas here the owner takes them by default. The designer has issued a drawing set and moved on, the contractor is running his own programme in his own interest, and there is nobody sitting between the two whose job is the owner's outcome. Where the owner is abroad, or occupied with other work, or simply not in the construction trade, the space gets filled by whoever is most insistent on site that week.

A project manager is the person appointed to close that space. So the useful question is not whether a villa needs one. It is who performs the role, how early they arrive, and how much they know about the design they are being asked to defend.

The designing consultant as project manager

There are two reasonable ways to fill the role. One is an independent manager appointed alongside the designer, who comes to the drawings as a reader rather than an author and has to learn in weeks a house that took months to resolve. The other is to keep the role inside the practice that designed the villa, where the programme is written by people who already know which parts of the build are genuinely difficult and which only look it.

LKYOOB works the second way. Project management is one of six disciplines held in one team, beside architecture design, interior design, engineering, landscape design and execution oversight, under founder and Chairman Moosa Swaidan with design led by Mahra Al Ramlawi. A question raised on site is answered against the intent that produced the drawing, not negotiated between an office that drew it and an office that inherited it, and the authority documentation is prepared by the same practice rather than passed along.

This is not the right arrangement for every owner, and it is worth saying so plainly. Where a house has been designed elsewhere and the owner wants a genuinely independent eye over both designer and contractor, independence is the thing being bought and it should be bought deliberately. What the integrated arrangement offers instead is the removal of distance between the design and the site, which is a different protection and suits a different commission.

Who holds each duty on a Dubai villa, under separate appointments and under one practice
Duty	Designer and contractor appointed separately	One practice designing and managing
Programme	Designer and contractor appointed separatelyWritten by the contractor after he is appointed, against drawings he did not produce.	One practice designing and managingWritten against the resolved design before the tender goes out, by the team that resolved it.
Tender documents	Designer and contractor appointed separatelyAssembled from the design set, with any gaps found by the bidders and priced back as risk.	One practice designing and managingIssued by the authors of the design, who know where the gaps are and complete them first.
Contractor appointment	Designer and contractor appointed separatelyFrequently settled on the lowest figure, because the submissions are difficult to compare.	One practice designing and managingSettled on a like for like comparison the practice prepares and explains to the owner.
Site supervision	Designer and contractor appointed separatelyDivided between the contractor's own staff and occasional visits from the designer.	One practice designing and managingCarried continuously as execution oversight, against the practice's own drawings.
Cost control	Designer and contractor appointed separatelyReconciled after the event, once a variation has already been built.	One practice designing and managingPriced before instruction, with the effect on the programme recorded at the same time.
Handover	Designer and contractor appointed separatelyA list of defects passed between owner, designer and contractor.	One practice designing and managingInspected, snagged and closed out by the practice that wrote the specification.

Process

Where the management sits in the five stages

Management is not a stage that starts when the drawings stop. It runs through the same five stages every LKYOOB commission follows, and most of what it later protects is decided in the first three.

Vision & Lifestyle Study

The brief is read for what it will ask of a build as well as what it asks of a design: how the plot is reached, what the ground is likely to be, which authority the plot answers to, and which parts of the ambition carry the longest lead times. A first outline programme comes from that reading rather than from a template.

Concept & Design Direction

Sequence and buildability are tested against the concept while both can still move without cost. The elements that will govern the programme, a basement, a pool, a long span, stone that has to come from a particular quarry, are named at the point where the plan can still accommodate them gracefully.

Integrated Design Development

The management work here is coordination, and it is the largest single protection a budget gets. Drawings that agree with one another cannot generate a variation, so the effort spent making architecture, structure, services, interiors and landscape into one set is effort taken off the site's argument list later.

Materials & Details

The tender package is finished: specifications fixed, junctions drawn, samples approved and the scope written so that every bidder is pricing the same house. Items with long lead times are placed into the programme deliberately rather than discovered inside it once the site is open.

Execution & Delivery

The contractor is appointed and the work begins under the studio's own execution oversight. Each element is inspected against the drawings before it is covered, variations are priced before they are instructed, progress is measured against the agreed programme, and the house is commissioned, snagged and handed over by the practice that specified it.

Where we manage commissions

A programme in Dubai is shaped by the community almost as much as by the house, because access, permitted working hours, deliveries and the consent of a master developer are all local matters.

A beachfront plot reached by a single causeway is not the same logistical problem as an inland estate with open access, and a community that restricts heavy deliveries or evening work has written part of the programme before the contractor sees it. Developer consents, contractor access permits, and the conduct expected of a site sitting among occupied neighbours all belong with the manager rather than with the owner. Dubai is where the studio sits, commissions are taken across the United Arab Emirates, and the practice also works in the United States, in Houston, Austin, Miami and Orlando. 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 does project management cost on a villa in Dubai?

It follows the scope rather than the house. Whether the appointment covers management alone or sits inside a full design commission, how long the site will be open, how much of the work is specialist, and whether the practice drew the villa or is reading someone else's set all change what the work involves. An appointment to administer a straightforward build and an appointment to carry a complex house from tender to handover are different undertakings and should not be expected to sit in the same place.

What can be said without a figure is where the money is genuinely decided. A variation priced before it is instructed costs what it says it costs. The same variation discovered after it has been built is a negotiation the owner enters from behind, and a run of those is what turns a considered budget into a surprised one. Every LKYOOB appointment is scoped in writing against the particular plot, brief and specification before any of it begins.

What to ask before appointing a project manager

Four questions separate a real appointment from a title. Who will actually be on site, and how often. Whether the manager holds the design as well, or is reading a set they had no part in writing. How variations are handled, and specifically whether they are priced before instruction or after. And what the owner will receive in writing each month about cost, programme and the state of the work.

At LKYOOB the answers come from one practice. The manager belongs to the team that drew the house, the supervision is the studio's own execution oversight rather than an outsourced visit, variations are priced before they are instructed, and the owner receives one account of cost and programme from one source. Delivery operations are led by Mohammed Abdullah, under founder and Chairman Moosa Swaidan.

Frequently asked questions

What does a project manager do that an architect does not?

An architect answers for the design. A project manager answers for the way that design becomes a building: the programme it is built to, the tender it is priced through, the contractor appointed to carry it, the supervision it receives on site, and the account kept of cost and change along the way. At LKYOOB both duties sit inside one practice, so neither is argued across a contract between firms.

Can LKYOOB manage a villa it did not design?

Sometimes, and the answer turns on the drawings. A complete, coordinated set a contractor can build from is one situation. A set still carrying gaps is quite another, because a manager who did not draw it will be resolving those gaps at the owner's expense and under someone else's name. The studio reads the documentation and any contract already signed first, then says plainly which parts it will stand behind.

Who chooses the contractor, and on what basis?

The owner chooses, on a recommendation the studio can defend. The work behind the recommendation is the part that matters: a tender package complete enough that every bidder prices the same house, a shortlist suited to this villa rather than to any villa, an assessment of what each submission actually contains, and a plain reading of what the lowest figure has left out.

How is cost controlled once the site is open?

By keeping the drawings ahead of the work and the account current. Variations are priced before they are instructed rather than after, the contractor's applications are measured against what has genuinely been built, and every change carries a note of what it does to the programme. Most overspend on a private villa is not dishonesty, it is a run of small decisions taken without anyone adding them together.

What does the studio actually inspect on site?

The work against the approved drawings and the specification. Setting out, structure, waterproofing and service routes are checked before anything covers them, and finishes are checked as they arrive. Deliveries are measured against what was specified, samples and mock-ups are approved before a full run proceeds, and anything departing from the design is recorded and resolved rather than quietly absorbed into the house.

Where is LKYOOB based, and what should I bring to a first meeting?

The studio is at Office 02, Dubai Marine Beach Resort, Jumeirah 1, Dubai, and receives clients by appointment. Management commissions are taken across Dubai's established communities, elsewhere in the United Arab Emirates and in the United States. A first conversation is most useful with the plot plan and whatever already exists: drawings, a tender, a contractor's proposal or a signed contract.

Most owners start looking for a project manager at the point where a build has already begun to drift, which is the hardest moment to appoint one. If you are earlier than that, with a design finishing or a tender ahead of you, that is the useful time to talk, and the studio in Jumeirah 1 would be glad to.

Begin a conversation with the studio in Jumeirah.