Homy Cozy

French interior design & fit-out · Dubai

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Office & commercialfit-out in Dubai

Offices, clinics, salons and shops. My photographed work is residential, so nothing below is dressed up as a commercial project — what this page offers instead is the part that decides your opening date, said plainly.

Send the unit

Photos of the shell, the floor plan if you have it, and the building. That is enough for a straight answer.

A commercial lobby: a curved timber-clad wall, a curved slatted reception counter, recessed lighting and a large-format stone floor.
Reference image a stock photograph, not my work

The chain before the build

No fit-out in Dubai starts with a saw. It starts with permissions, and they run in an order that cannot be shuffled. This is where a programme is won or lost.

  1. I

    The building says yes

    The landlord or the facility management team issues a fit-out NOC, usually against a security deposit, a list of approved contractors and proof of insurance. Nothing downstream can start without it.

  2. II

    The right authority, not just any

    Which one depends on where the unit stands: Dubai Municipality for most of the city, DDA in Dubai Design District and the TECOM communities, Trakhees around the ports and Palm Jumeirah, DMCC in JLT, DIFC in the financial centre. Applying to the wrong one costs weeks.

  3. III

    Civil Defence, and the services

    Dubai Civil Defence reviews anything that touches fire detection, sprinklers, exits or fire-rated partitions. DEWA covers the electrical connection. Both are drawings first, inspections later.

  4. IV

    Build, then sign off

    Only then does the site open. It closes the same way it opened — with an inspection and a completion certificate, which is what the trade licence and the handover eventually hang on.

What gets built

These are stock photographs, not my projects. They are here to name the work: a counter built as one curve, a shopfront in timber battens, a banquette run in leather — the same joinery, stone and light as a flat, in a room the public walks into.

The scope, plainly

What I draw and build in a commercial unit. Everything that is not on this list — structure, MEP design, specialist kitchens — is coordinated with the consultant the authority requires, and I say so before we start, not after.

Partitions & ceilings

Stud and glazed screens, acoustic infill, fire-rated build-ups where the drawing calls for them. Suspended ceilings, drops, coves and access panels that someone can actually open.

Joinery

Reception counters, display runs, banquettes, storage walls. Drawn to the unit and made for it — the same shop that makes the kitchens on this site.

Floors, finishes & light

Large-format porcelain, stone, vinyl and engineered timber. Plaster, microcement and paint. Track, linear and cove lighting, set out on the ceiling plan rather than added at the end.

What a quotation actually turns on

There is no price list on this site. In a commercial unit, what follows moves a number more than the area does.

Shell, or someone else's fit-out

A bare shell is a clean start. A unit that was a café and is becoming a clinic carries a strip-out, a waste run to remove, and services that have to be traced before anything is cut.

What the authority asks for

Fire-rated partitions, a sprinkler head moved, an extra exit sign: each is small on its own and each is a drawing, a submission and a wait. The approval route is priced with the build, not after it.

When you are allowed to work

Occupied towers and malls confine noisy work to nights and to booked service lifts. The same scope costs more in a live building than in an empty one, and it is the schedule that carries the difference.

The date you have to open on

A fixed opening date is met by putting more people on site in parallel, which is a real cost and an honest one. Told early, it is planned for; told late, it is paid for twice.

The rest of the work

Send the unit.
Get a straight answer.

Photos of the shell, the floor plan if you have one, and the name of the building. That is enough for me to tell you what is realistic, and which authority you are dealing with.

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+971 56 969 8929