Commercial budget builder · Dubai & UAE

Building automation budget for a Dubai tower, hotel or office

A budget band per unit, before the drawings.

Five questions about the building and its stage. You get an indicative budget band per apartment, key or floor, then we send a specification pack — because nobody prices a tower from a form.

  1. 1Building
  2. 2Scale
  3. 3Stage
  4. 4Systems
  5. 5Budget

What is the building?

How the band is built

A tower, a hotel or an office is priced from the drawings, never from a form, so the builder gives you a band per unit and the order of magnitude across the building rather than pretending to a total. The per-unit figures come from what we already publish: lighting control at our per-zone range of AED 2,550 to 5,100, scaled to the zones a standard apartment, key or office floor actually carries; a KNX backbone per villa from AED 153,000 on an estate; and the network, access, CCTV and audio-visual lines taken from the same whole-villa system split our residential cost guide uses.

Building-level items do not get a number here on purpose. BMS integration depends on the plant, the metering and the building's own systems; a maintenance contract is priced from the asset list after a survey. Both are listed so the specification pack covers them.

Why per unit, not a total

Developers and consultants budget by apartment, key or floor because that is how the cost is compared against the sale price or the rent. The band per unit multiplied across the scale band you chose gives the order of magnitude a board can react to; the specification pack, with layouts, single-line schematics and standardised unit packages, turns it into a figure your consultant can tender. Volume pricing is set there, not here.

What we deliver at each stage

At concept, specification consultancy is at no cost, and the earlier we are involved the cheaper the risers, containment and rack rooms are to get right. At design development we produce AutoCAD layouts, schematics and the specification pack. At tender we price against the drawings. An existing building is surveyed first: what is installed, what still works, what the risers can carry. An installed system that needs looking after is priced from its asset list under a maintenance contract covering Lutron, KNX, Crestron and Control4.

What we need from you to start

The architectural drawings or the unit mix, whichever exists; the stage the project is at; the systems the specification must cover; and the name of the consultant or contractor we will be coordinating with. A tender pack, if there is one, saves a round. From that we return the specification pack, the standardised unit packages and the budget, written so a board can approve it and a consultant can tender it. Everything you enter here travels with the request, so the first conversation starts from the building, not from a blank page.

Questions

Budgeting a building: questions developers ask

Can you give a total for the tower?

Not from a form. The band per unit across your scale band is the honest order of magnitude; the specification pack is where a total you can tender comes from.

What is in a specification pack?

Layouts, single-line schematics, riser and rack-room requirements, standardised unit packages and the budget that goes with them, written so a consultant can put it out to tender. Specification consultancy is at no cost.

Why KNX for a building?

The open standard keeps the asset out of any one contractor's hands: common areas, plant and lighting on KNX can be maintained by any certified integrator for the life of the building.

Do you take on buildings you did not install?

Yes. A retrofit or a maintenance contract starts with a survey of what is installed and what the risers can carry, then a number from the asset list.

How long does a specification pack take?

For a tower or a hotel, typically two to three weeks from receiving the architectural drawings and the unit mix; for an office floor or a retail unit, days. Concept-stage advice is quicker still, because it shapes the drawings rather than following them.

Can the apartment packages be standardised across a tower?

That is the point of specifying early. One package per unit type, repeated cleanly, with a documented handover record for every residence in the Client Portal before the keys move, and Iconic Care™ support available to each owner from day one.

Who do you work with on a commercial project?

Developers, MEP and ELV consultants, main contractors and fit-out teams, and the operator who will run the building. One point of contact from concept to handover, and documentation written to the standard the next consultant can read.