Commercial

Work that runs
to a programme.

Fitout, upgrade and compliance work delivered against a brief, a budget and a date.

Twenty years of commercial and institutional projects — aged care, workplaces, retail and hospitality, cinemas, civic and education buildings. Repeatable delivery, documented properly, on the programme the client set.

What we do

Commercial work rewards a different discipline to housing. The brief is written down. The programme is fixed. The measure of a good consultant is whether the documentation is complete, the approvals land when they are supposed to, and the contractor can build from the drawings without a fortnight of RFIs.

That is the work we do, and it is the work we are expanding.

01
Feasibility and brief What fits, what it costs, what approvals it needs. Enough to decide with, before anyone commits.
02
Approvals Development applications, complying development, change of use, s.4.55 modifications. Council, private certifier or panel — we run the pathway that gets there fastest.
03
Documentation Construction certificate and for-construction sets. Coordinated with the engineers, the services consultants and the certifier before it goes out, not after.
04
Compliance Building Code, accessibility, fire and egress, and — where it applies — Design and Building Practitioners Act regulated designs and design compliance declarations.
05
Contract administration Under AS 4000, AS 4902 for design and construct, ABIC, or novated to the head contractor. Progress claims, variations, extensions of time and site reports — someone reading the contract on the client’s behalf.

Sectors

Where the work has been, and where it continues.

Sector capability is held across the practice, not by one person. Our team brings recent health and education experience alongside the principal’s twenty years across commercial, institutional and civic work.

01

Aged care and retirement

Residential aged care and retirement living — independent living units, common facilities and staged upgrades to occupied buildings. Work we are actively expanding, and where the National Aged Care Design Principles now set the reference.

Opal Aged Care · Lourdes Retirement Village* · Kostka Hall feasibility*
02

Workplace and end-of-trip

Office fitout, tenancy upgrades and end-of-trip facilities — bike storage, showers, lockers and the compliance that comes with them.

Dolby end-of-trip and office, Millers Point · Aeona, Surry Hills · QBE* · Franklin Templeton* · DEXUS* · Investa*
03

Retail and hospitality

Shopping centres, restaurants, cafés and hotels. Short programmes, tight budgets, and a fitout that has to open on the day it says it will.

Oxley Mall* · Elermore Shopping Centre* · Hugos* · Radisson* · Max Brenner* · George's Café · Tucker Café
04

Entertainment and leisure

Cinemas, lounges and premium seating, and the recreational facilities that sit alongside them.

Capitol Cinemas Manuka* · Event Cinemas* · X-Seat and Centreline lounges* · World Padel Club*
05

Education

Schools, libraries, early learning and training facilities. Work programmed around terms and holidays, because that is the only window there is. Capability held across the practice, including staff with recent sector experience.

Sydney Grammar School* · Sydney Grammar Library* · Department of Education* · SEED Parramatta* · Waverley Childhood Centre*
06

Civic and community

Council and government facilities, community centres, emergency services and sporting infrastructure.

City of Sydney* · Liverpool Council* · PCYC* · Blacktown Soccer Facility* · Tamarama SLSC* · Barraba Fire Station* · Royal Australian Navy Pavilion*
07

Industrial and logistics

Warehouses, distribution and light industrial — including tenancy fitout within larger estates.

SHEIKE warehouse, St Peters · Target Logistics* · Goodman* · Hawker Pacific* · Pacific Grain*
08

Marine and waterfront

Superyacht marina and waterfront facilities, including work in and around working harbour sites.

White Bay Superyacht Marina, Glebe Island · Swan Superyacht Marina*
09

Health and clinical

Day surgeries, consulting suites and clinical fitout. Major hospital work sits earlier in the practice history and now informs our aged care and clinical fitout work rather than being pursued for its own sake.

Bankstown Hospital* · Calvary Mater* · RPA* · NSW Health cancer centres* · eye and dental surgeries*

* Work undertaken by Jonathan Spicer as Associate at the Quinlan Group (previously ArcEngine), 2006–2017.

Multi-site rollouts

Some clients do not have one building. They have forty, and they need the same thing done in all of them, to the same standard, without forty separate conversations.

We have run that work — a standard design adapted site by site, documented consistently, approved through whichever authority each site sits under, and delivered on a rolling programme.

Compass Group

Food service facilities rolled out across hospital sites — each one a live clinical environment with its own constraints, delivered to a common standard.

Cushman & Wakefield*

National tenancy rollout programme, documented once and adapted per site.

AHL and Event Cinemas*

Cinema and premium seating upgrades across a national circuit.

A rollout is not forty projects. It is one project, resolved properly, then repeated forty times without the standard slipping.

Why clients use us for this

  • Registered where it matters. Registered Architect in NSW, ACT and Victoria, and a Registered Design Practitioner and Registered Principal Design Practitioner under the Design and Building Practitioners Act.
  • Class 2 capable. Extensive experience in Class 2 buildings, which is where the compliance burden is heaviest and the fewest practices are properly set up.
  • We document to build, not to look good. The test of a set is whether a builder can price it and construct it without a fortnight of questions.
  • We read the contract. Contract administration under AS 4000 and AS 4902 design and construct, ABIC and similar — including novated consultancy arrangements. Progress claims, variations, extensions of time, and a site report the client can actually use.
  • We tell you what we cannot do. Where a matter needs a certifier, a fire engineer, an acoustic consultant or a lawyer, we identify it and refer it. We do not stretch beyond our registration.
  • A small practice with a long back catalogue. You deal with the person doing the work.

Start a conversation

Tell us the building, the programme and the budget. We will tell you what is feasible and what it will take — before anyone commits to anything.