Interior Design Company in Dubai
Samra is an interior design company built inside a fit-out and renovation contractor, with the designer on our own payroll. The drawing set you sign off is produced by the same company that prices the work, orders the materials, builds the joinery in its own workshop and hands the space over. No tender gap in the middle, and no argument later about whether the design was ever buildable at your budget.
We work on offices, clinics, shops, restaurants, showrooms, villas and apartments across Dubai. You can engage us for the design alone, or for design and build under one contract. Most owners choose the second, and the reason is on this page.
What the design stage delivers
The design stage is a set of documents, not a slideshow. Each of the following is produced, issued to you and signed off before the next one starts.
Concept and design direction
Layout options for the space, a material and colour palette, and the finish direction for each area. This is where we test your brief against the money you have set aside, before anyone details anything. If the brief and the budget do not meet, that conversation happens here rather than halfway through construction.
Space plan
A dimensioned layout: circulation, room sizes, desk or seat counts for an office, treatment room or chair positions for a clinic, storage, door swings, and the fixed constraints you cannot move such as structural columns, risers, sprinkler zones and existing drainage runs.
Materials and finishes schedule
Every floor, wall, ceiling, worktop, splashback, skirting, door and ironmongery item named room by room, with the manufacturer and product reference against it. This document is what stops a substitution arriving on site without your knowledge, because the schedule is attached to the build contract.
Joinery detailing
Shop drawings for every built-in item: reception counters, wardrobes, kitchen units, wall panelling, retail display, storage walls. Carcass and front materials, edge treatments, handle and hinge specification, and the tolerances our own workshop needs. These are drawn to the level a joinery shop builds from, not to the level a mood board suggests.
Lighting and MEP coordination
A reflected ceiling plan that resolves lights, air conditioning grilles, diffusers, sprinklers, smoke detectors and speakers against one ceiling grid, plus a luminaire schedule, switching and dimming zones, and socket, data and lighting positions marked on the layout. Where wet areas move, drainage falls and water routing are drawn at the same time. This coordination is the single most common reason a beautiful drawing turns ugly on site, and it is the reason we do it before the contract is priced, not during construction.
Authority drawings
Where the project needs a submission, the design stage produces the drawing set in the format the relevant authority accepts.
Visuals are scoped per project. If you want rendered views of the main spaces, say so at the brief stage so they are written into the proposal rather than added later.
Why owners choose Samra as their interior design company
Owners shortlisting interior design companies in Dubai are usually choosing between two models without anyone naming them. Interior design firms fall into one or the other, and which one you pick decides what happens to your budget.
The first is a design studio. Interior design consultants who do not build hand you a drawing set and step back at tender. The set goes out to contractors, prices come back, and the prices are often nothing like the figure the design was drawn against. Then either the budget moves or the design gets cut, and the cutting is done by a contractor who was not in the room when the design decisions were made. Detail gets lost quietly.
The second is design and build. One company draws it and one company builds it, under one contract, with one price.
Samra runs the second model, and here is what that changes in practice.
The drawing is priced by the people who will build it
Our designer sits alongside the estimator and the site team. A detail that cannot be built at your budget gets flagged while it is still a line on a drawing, when changing it costs nothing.
In-house joinery
Built-in furniture is made in our own workshop from our own shop drawings. Nothing is passed to a third-party joiner who reinterprets a detail to suit his machinery.
In-house MEP
Electrical, plumbing and duct work sit inside the same business. When the ceiling plan moves a diffuser or the layout moves a socket, it is coordinated internally rather than negotiated between two sub-contractors.
One point of contact
One project manager owns the job from concept through handover, including snagging and any warranty callback afterwards. Escalation is a message to a person, not a ticket in a queue.
One warranty
A single workmanship warranty covers civil, joinery, finishes and MEP. You are not holding four separate warranties from four separate trades and working out whose problem a defect is.
Women-owned, trading since 2015
Samra is a women-owned Dubai contractor that has been trading since 2015, working as an interior renovation contractor as much as a design office. Both halves are in the same company on purpose.
How design hands over to build
The handover from design to build is where most projects lose time and money, so it is worth being specific about how it runs here.
1. Site survey
We measure the actual space rather than trusting a landlord drawing. Ceiling voids, slab levels, riser positions, existing electrical capacity, drainage and structural constraints are recorded.
2. Brief and budget
You tell us what the space has to do and what you have set aside. We tell you, before drawing, what is realistic in that envelope.
3. Concept sign-off
Layout and material direction agreed in writing.
4. Detailing
Space plan, finishes schedule, joinery shop drawings and ceiling coordination produced against the signed concept.
5. Bill of quantities
The detailed drawings are priced trade by trade into a written bill of quantities. Because the drawings came from inside the same company, the bill of quantities is measured off the real detail, not off an assumption about it.
6. Contract and approvals
You sign the bill of quantities. Approval submissions are lodged in parallel so the paperwork and the procurement run at the same time rather than one after the other.
7. Construction
Sequenced civil work, first-fix services, finishes, second-fix services, joinery installation.
8. Snagging and handover
Snag list closed, handover documents issued, warranty starts. Optional handover into a maintenance contract if you want the same team looking after the space afterwards.
What you supply
Design work stalls on missing information more often than on missing decisions. Have these ready and the programme holds.
The unit floor plan, in CAD if the landlord or developer issued one
Your lease or title deed, and the tenancy or handover date
The building management fit-out rules, permitted working hours and any approved contractor list the tower runs
Existing services drawings or as-builts if the previous occupier left any
Brand guidelines, logo files and signage artwork for a commercial space
A list of what you are supplying yourself: loose furniture, appliances, IT and audio visual equipment, artwork, specialist machinery
Any fixed date you are working towards, such as a licence inspection, a lease start or an opening date
One named decision maker who can sign off
Authority drawings and where approvals apply
Not every interior project needs an authority submission. A paint and furniture refresh usually does not. Anything that moves a wall, alters a ceiling, changes electrical load, relocates drainage or changes the use of a space usually does.
Where approvals apply, Samra coordinates them as part of the contract and produces the drawings the submission needs.
Building management fit-out NOC
The first submission on any tower or mall unit. It sets working hours, service lift booking, insurance requirements, waste disposal terms and what you may drill, cut or alter. Nothing starts on site before it is issued.
Dubai Municipality
Layout, occupancy and building modifications.
Dubai Civil Defence
Fire strategy, escape routes, detection and sprinkler alterations where a ceiling or partition layout changes the existing arrangement.
DEWA
Electrical load, metering and cabling where the design changes the demand on the supply.
Developer and free zone authorities
Master developers and free zone authorities each run their own portal, their own drawing format and their own timetable. Where your building sits under one, that submission runs alongside the others.
Clinics
For medical spaces we produce the drawing set and coordinate the municipality and civil defence side. The health authority licensing submission stays with the clinic, because it is tied to your licence and your practitioners rather than to the contractor. We supply the drawings your consultant needs for it. See clinic refurbishment for how that runs.
Approval fees are passed through at cost and shown as a separate line, never buried inside a rate.
How we price interior design
We do not publish rates for interior design, because a rate quoted without seeing the space is a number invented to win a phone call. Here is the method instead.
Free site visit first
We survey the unit, take the brief and look at what is actually there before quoting anything.
Design is quoted against a defined deliverable list
The proposal names exactly which of the documents above you are getting, how many revision rounds are included, and what triggers a variation. Open-ended design scope is how design fees run away, so the boundary is written down.
Build is quoted as a trade-by-trade bill of quantities
After the detailed drawings are signed, the work is measured and priced line by line: partitions, ceilings, flooring, joinery by item, electrical points, plumbing, painting, doors, ironmongery. Materials are line-itemised so you can see what you are paying for and swap a specification if you want to. On a fit-out contract we issue that bill of quantities within seven working days of the site survey. Once you sign it, the price is fixed unless you change the scope.
What moves the number
Floor area and ceiling height. How much of the existing layout survives. Whether services move. The quantity and complexity of built-in joinery, which is usually the largest single element in an interior. Finish tier, from standard laminates through to stone, veneer and specialist wall finishes. Whether the building forces night or weekend working. Authority submissions where they apply. Programme, because a compressed date buys labour rather than materials.
Every project ends at a written quotation or bill of quantities before any work begins. If you want a sense of what drives fit-out cost more generally, the fit-out cost guide covers the same drivers across project types.
Workmanship and material warranties
Samra provides a six-month workmanship warranty on the work we build. One warranty covers civil work, joinery, finishes and MEP together, rather than a separate warranty from each trade with gaps between them.
Workmanship warranty
Six-month workmanship warranty across civil work, joinery, finishes and MEP. One warranty, one point of accountability. If a defect appears inside the warranty period, the same project manager who ran the build handles it.
Material warranties
Material warranties are separate and pass through from the manufacturer. Flooring, sanitaryware, ironmongery, appliances, lighting and specialist finishes each carry their own manufacturer cover, and the terms differ by product. The applicable material warranties are confirmed in the quotation for your project rather than promised in general terms here.
For spaces that need ongoing upkeep after handover, an annual maintenance contract covers scheduled visits for an annual fee billed quarterly, with a commercial version for offices, clinics, shops and restaurants.
Frequently asked questions
Can you do the design only, without the build?
Yes. A design-only engagement is available, and the drawings are produced to the same standard whether we build them or not. The terms covering use of the drawings are set out in the proposal before you sign. Most owners who start with design-only come back for the build, because at that point the person holding the drawings is also the person who can price them without a tender round.
Do you work on homes as well as commercial spaces?
Yes. Villas and apartments are regular work, either as full interior projects or as single-room work such as bathroom renovation and villa renovation. Commercial work covers offices, clinics, shops, showrooms and restaurants.
We already have drawings from another designer. Will you build them?
Yes. We will review the set first and tell you honestly where it is incomplete, where it will fail coordination on site, and where the specification will not hold at the budget. That review happens before we price, not after, so you are not signing a number that moves later.
How is an office interior design company different from a fit-out contractor?
A design office produces drawings and stops. A fit-out contractor builds drawings someone else produced. Samra does both, so the drawing and the price come from the same place. If you only need the build side, office fit-out and office and shop fit-out cover that scope directly.
Who buys the loose furniture?
Usually you, unless you ask us to include it. Built-in joinery is ours: wardrobes, counters, storage walls, kitchen units, panelling. Loose furniture, appliances, IT and audio visual equipment are more often bought directly by the client, and the design stage tells you what will fit and where, with dimensions, so you can order confidently. Say which way you want it at the brief stage and it goes into the scope in writing.
How long does the design stage take?
It depends on the size of the space and how quickly sign-offs come back, so we put the programme in the proposal with dates against each stage rather than quoting a general figure. The single biggest variable is decision speed on your side, which is why we ask for one named decision maker at the start.
Do you handle the approvals or do we?
We coordinate the building management NOC, Dubai Municipality, Dubai Civil Defence, DEWA and developer or free zone submissions where they apply, and produce the drawings for them. Clinic health authority licensing stays with the clinic and we supply the drawings for it. Approval fees pass through at cost.
Glazed partitions, shopfronts and balustrades are detailed with aluminium and glass works, and any structural steel with steel fabrication.
Areas we cover
Design work follows the property. Emirates Hills and Dubai Hills Estate, Arabian Ranches, Jumeirah and Meydan are villas, which means whole-home schemes and a longer approval chain. The DIFC district, Downtown Dubai and Business Bay are offices, where the brief is headcount and meeting rooms. Palm Jumeirah is both. The full list is on our areas page.
Send us the floor plan
Send your floor plan for a BOQ. WhatsApp the plan with the building name, floor and approximate area, tell us what the space has to do, and we will book a free site visit.
You get a written scope for the design stage and, once the drawings are signed, a trade-by-trade bill of quantities for the build. One company draws it, prices it and builds it, with a six-month workmanship warranty on the work.
WhatsApp or call +971 52 423 0419, or use the contact page.
Areas we cover
Same-day reach across Dubai. Tap your area for landmarks, communities and the services we deliver there — or tell us your building on WhatsApp.
Brief us on your interior design project
WhatsApp the floor plan with the building name, floor and approximate area. Free site visit, written design scope, and a trade-by-trade bill of quantities for the build once the drawings are signed. One company draws it, prices it and builds it, with a six-month workmanship warranty on the work.
