The expensive mistakes in a fit-out are rarely about taste

Nobody loses real money picking the wrong shade of oak. The expensive mistakes in a project are the other kind: a lounge chair with no fire documentation for a public space, seating that cannot take round-the-clock use, an acoustic problem discovered after move-in — the mistakes an inspector or an operations manager finds, months after the mood board was approved. This section exists for that side of the job: the side the specification has to survive.

For each project type you will find the same structure: which families of requirements actually matter in that context, the mistake specifiers make most often, what belongs in the specification, and which collections answer. With one rule stated up front: a product's suitability is what its manufacturer has declared and documented — the certificate is theirs, quoted under their name, and where a document does not exist we say so rather than write around it.

The workplace, our core trade, is covered down to its smallest rooms: executive offices, open plan and operative floors, meeting rooms, reception, waiting areas, break areas, outdoor space, washrooms, and the acoustic treatment that makes an open plan livable — because a real project does not end at the desks. Each environment has its own logic, and pretending one chair fits all of them is how fit-outs age badly.

The four project types: Office Projects, Hospitality projects, Healthcare projects and Education projects.

FAQ

Are your collections certified for my sector?
It depends on the product, the sector and the jurisdiction — which is exactly why this section exists. For each project type we indicate which families of requirements matter and which collections answer them with the manufacturer's documents: the certificate is quoted under the maker's name, in writing. Where a document does not exist, we say so before it becomes a problem at inspection.
Can you support the specification stage?
Yes, and it is the stage where we are most useful: technical sheets, finish codes, dimensioned drawings, and equivalent alternatives that keep a project alive when an item has to be substituted. A well-built specification protects the designer twice — at award and at handover — and it is much cheaper to write than to repair.
Do requirements really change between jurisdictions?
More than most people expect: the same chair can be compliant in one place and unusable in another, because fire classifications, emissions rules and workplace regulations differ. The sector pages treat requirements market by market, always starting from the manufacturer's documents — never from memory.
What happens to the specification when the budget is cut?
That round comes on almost every project, and it is where specifications die quietly: an equivalent-looking substitute with none of the documentation. Our answer is to build the alternatives into the specification from the start — same requirement families, different price points — so the cut removes cost, not compliance.
My project type is not listed — can you still supply it?
Almost always. Those four are simply where the volume is, not the edge of what we do — a conference center, a flagship showroom, a law firm's floor all run through the same sequence: what the use demands, what the manufacturer has documented, what goes into the specification. Describe the space and we will tell you which parts of it we can put on paper.

How to brief a project so the specification survives

Five steps that work for a hotel as well as a clinic — and save a full round of quotations.

Start from the use, not the look
Not «what style» but «what has to happen in this room, for how many people, for how many hours a day»: it is the use that switches requirements on, not the aesthetics.
List the constraints you already know
Ask the designer or the building's safety officer what applies: fire classes, acoustic targets, hygiene rules. If you do not know yet, say so — that is a starting point, not a failure.
Fix the date that cannot move
Opening, inspection, handover: the whole calendar is built backwards from that day, including the early decisions that let production start on time.
Declare the level of the intervention
An executive floor and a hundred-workstation operative floor are different projects even at equal square footage: saying it early avoids a week spent comparing collections that were never in scope.
Ask for the documents at quotation stage
Certificates, technical sheets and manufacturer declarations belong with the quote, not with the delivery: a missing document is discovered free of charge early, and expensively late.