Indicative duration by type of intervention
Overall duration depends on the type of intervention and the complexity of the property. These are the average timescales in our practice:
- Light refresh (updating furniture and finishes without building work): 3-4 months;
- Partial renovation (targeted work on selected rooms, with limited building works): 6-9 months;
- Complete renovation (full redesign of space and systems): 12-24 months.
Within these timescales, certain works have durations of their own:
- Lighting design: around 8 weeks for study, development and selection of fixtures;
- Production of bespoke furniture: 12-16 weeks from order confirmation;
- CILA/SCIA permit process: from 2 to 8 weeks, depending on the municipality.
These values refer to ordinary conditions, and listed properties, historic buildings or complex settings can require longer.
What the studio controls and what it does not
An interiors project passes through design phases, permits, site, bespoke production and deliveries, and each step has its own timing and margins of unpredictability. The studio presides over the quality of the design, the coordination of supplies and the direction of decisions, while public bodies, the structural condition of the property and technical surprises lie beyond direct control. Planning reduces the risks, but building work always retains the capacity to change the calendar, even within a rigorous method.
Why the design phase takes time
The care given to the design phase is what prevents delays on site. Before opening, every element is defined, from complete working drawings to coordinated systems, from confirmed materials to engaged trades. From the outside it can look like slowness, and it is instead the investment that avoids corrections on site, where every change costs double in time and money. The same logic applies to supplies, because as soon as the client approves, quantification and refinement begin to the supplier’s specifications, and the dialogue with artisans and companies keeps production times in view and sets deliveries to the pace of the site. The final logistics demand tight planning, so that weeks are not lost between one installation and the next.
Structural unknowns in existing buildings
Existing buildings hide unknowns that emerge only once demolition is under way, such as structural problems, non-compliant systems, compromised substrates, asbestos or damp, and in older properties it happens with some frequency. Preliminary analysis, test openings and inspections with specialist engineers reduce the risk, but when the unexpected arrives, the following works slip in cascade and the programme has to be recalibrated.
Permits and shared-building dynamics
Protected historic buildings and significant structural changes have approval times that depend on the authorities, and the building community adds a further layer, between working hours, noise limits, common parts, scaffolding permits and public land. Planning and preliminary analysis anticipate these constraints, while the response times of public bodies remain an independent variable.
Lead times for bespoke elements and specialist fabrication
Bespoke and technically demanding elements are the most sensitive, from special window frames to complex joinery, from natural stone to dedicated lighting systems. Production runs for weeks or months and, once an order is under way, accelerating is difficult. The most common mistake concerns the perception of time, because postponing a decision, or introducing a variation after approval, reopens the cycle of quantification, checking and production, the chain lengthens and the delivery moves. Expecting speed after weeks of indecision means ignoring the rhythms of the production process.
External factors that slow the site
The site feels external factors. Weather touches laying, screeds, roofing and window frames, while access, logistics and the urban context slow handling and deliveries. The sequences then have incompressible times, because a screed must dry, paintwork must cure and a system must be tested. Continuous coordination and constant presence keep control, and a slippage is recognised when a delay begins to touch the following phases, and that is where we intervene, reorganising the sequences and containing the domino effect.
The real margins for compression
When a client asks to compress the timescale, the real possibilities are few, and come down to pressing trades and small suppliers, intensifying presence on site and overlapping compatible works, while for industrial production and bespoke work with cycles under way the margins are minimal. Some accelerations are simply to be refused, because manual work, decoration and precision laying ask for time and concentration, and forcing them means accepting an inferior result, or redoing. Quality is proportional to the time devoted to it.
The client’s role in keeping the programme on track
The client’s participation decides whether the calendar holds. Styles, furniture, colours and materials are the choices that most often slow things down, when they are postponed or reconsidered, and every element approved and then changed requires a recalibration of the whole. The rhythm is sustained by closing choices on the shared dates, trusting the reasoning behind each proposal, raising doubts before approval and avoiding independent initiatives on site or requests outside what was agreed. Punctual decisions keep the programme true to reality, and when the rhythm breaks, the consequences distribute themselves across the whole arc of the project.
How the method handles contingencies
A well-managed project proceeds at a steady rhythm, because each phase is prepared by the one before, and the contingencies that inevitably arrive find a system ready to absorb them. Setting exact figures on duration remains arduous, because every project and every site is a case of its own, but the method reduces the controllable variables to a minimum and meets the others with promptness.
