Home and Office Interior Design: From Brief to Fit-Out

Most of the work in interior design happens outside the choice of colours and furniture: first you write down who will use the space and how, then you make sure the dimensions on the drawings hold on site. In home and office interior architecture and fit-out the questions differ, but the order is the same: the brief, light and acoustics, materials, construction drawings and site coordination.

What goes into the brief?

For a home, the brief starts with how many people live there: who works from home, how often guests come, how heavily the kitchen is used, whether there are children, elderly people or pets. In a household that cooks a lot, a fully open kitchen brings smell and noise problems. For storage, list what you already own (books, suitcases, seasonal clothes); if the volume isn't worked out at the start, the cupboards end up squeezed into whatever corners are left over.

For an office, the brief comes out of these questions: headcount and expected growth, how many people are in the office at the same time (with hybrid working, these two numbers differ), the number and size of meeting rooms, phone booths, archive storage, a server room, and how visitors move through the space.

Alongside the brief you need a measured drawing of the existing space, a measured survey: where the columns and shear walls are, the service shafts, the wet areas. Moving a bathroom or kitchen elsewhere needs extra height in the floor so the waste pipe can be laid to a fall. In a leased office, find out from building management at the outset which changes are allowed to the suspended ceiling, the sprinkler lines and the façade. If a change touches the structure, the job falls under building renovation and strengthening.

How should lighting and acoustics be planned?

Lighting is planned in three layers: general lighting; task lighting on surfaces such as worktops, desks and mirrors; and accent lighting. If a kitchen has only ceiling spotlights, the person at the worktop stands in their own shadow; that is what under-cabinet lighting is for. In an office, placing desks at right angles to the windows cuts reflections on screens; lighting levels at workstations follow TS EN 12464-1, the Turkish edition of the European standard on lighting of indoor workplaces. Sockets and data points should be drawn once the furniture layout is fixed, or they end up behind a cupboard.

Acoustics involves two separate jobs. Sound absorption reduces echo inside the room: acoustic ceilings, carpet, fabric panels. Sound insulation stops sound passing into the next room: a partition filled with stone wool, a sealed door. Hanging panels on the wall won't stop a meeting-room conversation from carrying into the corridor. A common mistake is to stop the meeting-room partition at the suspended ceiling; sound passes over it through the ceiling void, so the partition has to run up to the concrete slab above. In homes, waste pipes next to bedrooms are insulated, and in apartments an impact sound underlay goes under the wood flooring.

Choosing materials with maintenance in mind

Ask how a material ages as well as how it looks on day one: which stains it holds, whether it can be repaired when scratched, whether one damaged piece means replacing the whole lot.

Material	Where it suits	What to watch
Solid or engineered wood flooring	Living room, bedroom	Sensitive to moisture. Solid wood can be sanded and refinished several times; with engineered boards, that depends on the thickness of the top wood layer.
Porcelain tile	Kitchen, bathroom, entrance, office common areas	Grout colour and upkeep; with large formats, a flat substrate.
Marble	Entrance, bathroom	Dulled by acids such as lemon juice and vinegar; needs a sealer.
Quartz composite worktop	Kitchen	Non-porous and does not stain easily; hot pans should not go directly on it.
Carpet tiles	Office work areas	Absorbs sound; a damaged tile can be replaced on its own.

In enclosed offices and bedrooms, low-emission paints and adhesives are preferred. In offices, the fire classification of finishes on escape routes must comply with Turkey's Regulation on Fire Protection of Buildings; check this when choosing timber and fabric finishes. Tiles and wood flooring should come from the same production batch, with a few spare boxes kept back for repairs, since the shade can vary between batches.

What should the construction drawings include?

The concept and design approval with 3D renders are the visible part of the job; the drawing the tradesman actually works from is the set of construction drawings. A complete set includes:

• A demolition and construction plan showing the walls removed and the walls built
• Furniture layout plan
• Ceiling plan: suspended ceiling levels, light fittings, air grilles, sprinkler and detector positions
• Floor finishes plan: tile setting-out, transitions between materials, thresholds
• Electrical, data, plumbing and HVAC points
• Wall elevations and details of bespoke joinery such as cupboards and reception counters
• A finishes schedule giving the floor, wall and ceiling material for every room

The quantity take-off comes from these drawings. An item with no drawing is either left out of the quotation or priced on a guess; that is the point of asking for a quantity-based quotation.

In what order does the work run on site?

1. Strip-out and demolition
2. Partition walls, with the electrical, plumbing and HVAC first fix
3. Plaster and screed; waterproofing and water testing in wet areas
4. Suspended ceilings and the first coats of paint
5. Floor and wall finishes
6. Installing cupboards and bespoke joinery
7. Light fittings, socket covers, the final coat of paint and the snag list

Cupboards are made to site measurements taken after plastering and tiling are finished; a cupboard built to the dimensions on the drawing may not fit. A suspended ceiling isn't closed up until the services above it have been tested, and access panels are left in it. In offices, when partitions change, sprinklers and smoke detectors are repositioned; in an occupied building, noisy work and debris removal are scheduled with building management. If design and construction are in the hands of separate teams, the contract should state who is responsible for dimensions and details. With us, payment is by progress payments: each one is calculated from the measured quantities of completed work.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I take down a wall at home?

In a reinforced concrete building, a brick or aerated concrete partition wall can be removed; the wiring and pipework running through it are rerouted. Shear walls and columns are not touched without a structural assessment; in load-bearing masonry buildings, the walls themselves carry the structure.

How do you reduce noise in an open-plan office?

Sound-absorbing panels on the ceiling and carpet on the floor cut the echo; for meetings and calls you need enclosed rooms whose partitions go up to the slab above.

What determines how long an interior fit-out takes?

Scope matters as much as floor area: a job that changes wet areas and services takes longer than refreshing paint and finishes, and the manufacture of bespoke items such as cupboards also goes into the schedule.