Office fit-outs come with a unique set of challenges, some of which include: working in a live environment, the need for modern technology and tools, the rising prices of materials, communication barriers and issues related to cost estimation.
Even with boundless resourcefulness and effort, hurdles can still arise which affect the success of your project. But with careful planning, our professional teams can help overcome these hurdles. Here we discuss some of the more common office fit-out challenges and how our team in Built Interiors have learned to tackle them.
Working in a Live Environment
This is by far the most common challenge experienced on office fit-out projects. A large percentage of our office fit-outs take place in a live, and sometimes shared, environment where continuity of services at all times are key. As well as service interruptions, noise distractions are another challenging impact. Noise distraction can be one of the biggest killers of productivity, so we prioritise investing considerable time at the planning stage to mitigate any and all distractions or impacts on live spaces and ensure that our schedule of works reflects this.
For example, St. Stephen’s Green was an extremely complicated project in a live environment completed within the confines of a tight city centre site and a fully operational 3rd level institution during exam time. The time we spent mitigating our impact on those around us and the exemplary delivery of this complex project earned our Managing Director, Barry Keenan a Gold Award at the prestigious CMYA (Construction Management of the Year Awards) held by the Chartered Institute of Builders.
Expense vs Investment
One of the biggest mistakes business owners can make is to consider their office fit-out as just an expense instead of an investment. Reframing the project like this from the very first day allows for better informed and considered decision making from planning right through construction and handover, by taking into account the future plans and strategy of the end user.
Planning is the first and most vital step in achieving a successfully designed office fit-out. Setting the tone from the initial kick-off meeting ensures every contractor is on the same page as to the client vision. This saves time and money in the long run allowing effective planning strategies to be incorporated throughout the processes. At Built Interiors we make sure that we understand our client’s long-term business plans so they can be incorporated into the fit-out. This ensures future scalability is built in and we’re not only focused on the present situation.
Never Forget the Landlord
It’s important to remember that some projects involve a landlord or owner of the premises who is not the client or end-user. This person often has a surprisingly large influence on the overall success of the interior fit-out. Some examples of the challenges with landlords include the fact the landlord may own an office space or apartment within the building and is stating the fit-out contractor may only work outside normal business hours or maybe they are not permitted to use the lifts for bringing in materials and furniture, maybe they even have restrictions on delivery times which could have knock-on impacts to the schedule.
We have extensive first-hand experience of negotiating these hurdles. We’ve learned over the years that the best way to tackle it is by ensuring the landlord is a part of the initial discussions during the planning stage rather than waiting to bring them in at the execution stage.
