When a company decides to renovate its offices, the first choice it makes – often without knowing it – is the most decisive one: who is put in charge of the project. The interior decorator, the general contractor and the space planner are three figures with distinct skills, and the difference is not one of price or professional category. It is a difference of method and starting point.
Three figures, three different logics
The furniture dealer organises the space around the product they sell: their value is knowledge of the catalogue and the ability to configure it. The right choice when the space already works and needs refreshing without questioning the overall scheme.
The general contractor coordinates supplies and construction under a single contract, simplifying operational management. Their value lies in execution: timing, costs, a single interface with the client. It assumes the design is already defined.
The space planner – and this is the distinction that matters – starts from the organisation before the space. Their task is to translate the company's needs into a layout that enables them: not to distribute furniture, but to define how many work settings are needed, of what type, in what proportion, and why.
| Furniture dealer | General contractor | Space planner | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting point | The catalogue product | The already defined design | The organisation and the data, before the space |
| Scope of expertise | Organises the space around the furniture and configures the supply | Coordinates supplies and construction under a single contract | Translates needs into work settings sized on surveys, the typical day and BOMA |
| When it makes sense | The layout already works and just needs refreshing | The design is there, it needs to be built | The hard part is deciding how the space should work |
| Position and incentives | Incentive on the catalogue sold | Incentive on supplies and contractors engaged | No incentive on the supply: on the client's side |
The three figures compared: starting point, expertise, when they make sense and position with respect to the client.
The criterion: method and measurement
The useful question to find your bearings is this: is the hard part of my project choosing the furniture, managing the construction site or deciding how the space should work? The three answers correspond to three different figures. In complex projects the figures work together, but in a precise order: the design defines first, the supply and the construction site deliver afterwards.
For us, "defining" means starting from data. Through interviews and surveys we reconstruct each team's typical day – how many hours of concentration, how much structured collaboration, how much informal time – bringing out both expressed and latent needs. From there we size the work settings and the support areas on the BOMA standard, which translates the needs detected into objective, verifiable floor areas. The result is a design grounded in real data.
Relationship map on the CBD layout: proximity areas group work settings by affinity, confluence points mark where the flows meet.
On the client's side
A space planner who uses data as the basis of the design works in a structurally different position from those who sell products or coordinate construction sites: they have no incentives on the catalogue chosen or on the contractors engaged. This allows them to stay on the client's side throughout the process – from the preliminary analysis phase to works supervision – and to assess choices against the company's objectives, not the margins of the supply.
It is the same principle that guides our approach to Community Based Design: space as a tool that enables people, sized on how they really work.
Design and delivery, with a single team
The distinction between the three figures does not end with the delivery of the design. ARCHIlabs brings together architects, engineers – mechanical and electrical – and urban planners, and during delivery it manages works supervision, art direction, testing and specialist activities. The same team that read the data and designed the space follows its construction, with no handovers between those who design and those who build.