01 / Design
Architectural Design for Commercial Spaces in Cape Town
A full architectural service — from brief and concept through to site supervision — handled in-house. Engage us for the whole journey or for the specific stages you need. Fee scoped to the stages you require; you don't pay for what you don't need.
The five stages
Pay for the stages you need. Skip the ones you don’t.
Most clients engage us across all five — but the service is modular. Some come to us for a concept and a test fit. Some bring an approved design and need only the council and documentation stages. Some take our drawings and run the build themselves.
Brief & concept design
Understanding your requirements, the spatial brief, the site constraints. Producing initial concept options for review — enough to make the first big design decisions before detail begins.
Design development
Refining the approved concept into a coordinated design — materials, finishes, lighting, detailed layouts. The stage where the look and feel of the project is locked in.
Council drawings
Technical drawings prepared and submitted for municipal approval. End-to-end management of the City of Cape Town process — handled by the same team that drew the design.
Documentation & technical drawings
The full construction documentation package — schedules, specifications, coordinated drawings — for contractor tender and build. Comparable quotes instead of four guesses.
Site supervision & contract administration
Architectural oversight during construction — site visits, contractor instructions, and sign-off at practical completion. The design intent carried through to the built result.
Only need one or two of these stages? Tell us where you’re starting from
Scope a proposalWho it’s for
Four kinds of buyer use this service.
Who design-only fits in practice — and which stages each buyer typically engages.
Landlords with vacant space
A test fit and a set of renders turn an empty floor into something a prospective tenant can picture themselves in — a concrete marketing asset for the listing, the campaign, and the viewing.
Businesses deciding between premises
Before signing a lease, a test fit answers the question that matters — does this space actually work for us? — for each option on the table. The clearest, cheapest decision-making tool we know of.
Owners going out to tender
A proper design and drawing set means every contractor prices the same defined scope. You get comparable quotes instead of four guesses — and a far stronger basis for negotiation.
Anyone who needs to see it before committing
A concept and 3D renders make the design real enough to take to a board, a partner, a funder, or a co-founder for sign-off — before the capital is committed.
The compliance advantage
Designed by the team that gets it approved.
A design produced in isolation can look excellent and still fail when it meets the regulations — an escape route that doesn’t work, a layout that triggers a fire requirement nobody priced, a change of use that needed a submission.
First Gate designs with that in view from the start. The same people who prepare council submissions and secure occupancy certificates are involved in the design — so what you receive is buildable, approvable, and a real basis for tender. Not just attractive on screen.
Scope
What this service is, and isn't.
When it fits
When architectural design is the right move
- A pre-lease test-fit on one or more candidate buildings, so the lease is signed against a layout that works.
- A board-ready concept and 3D renders that take the design real enough to commit capital against.
- A tender-ready drawing set, so every contractor prices the same defined scope and you get comparable quotes.
- A council-bound submission package, drawn submission-ready by people who know what passes.
When it doesn't
Just looking for someone to build, without design
If you already have an approved design and want construction only, see our fit-out construction services — that's a different starting point.
Pure interior styling without spatial planning
We don't do furniture-and-finishes specs without the architectural layer underneath. The layout has to come first or the finishes work against it.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
- Yes. Design-only is a standalone service. The design and drawings are yours, and you’re free to have the work built by any contractor you choose.
- Professional architectural advice tailored to your project — with deliverables scoped to what you actually need. That might mean a measured survey, a space plan or test fit, concept design, 3D visualisations, a finishes and materials schedule, technical drawings, or any combination of these. We tell you what makes sense for your project, not what fills a package.
- Yes. Because the same team handles council submissions and occupancy certificates, the design is drawn to be buildable and compliant from the start. Where the project needs council approval, the drawings can be developed straight toward that submission — no rework.
- Yes — that’s one of the most useful times to do it. A test fit on each option tells you which space genuinely works before you’re committed to one.
- Yes. We handle residential, commercial, retail, and industrial — the underlying spatial and regulatory discipline is similar across all property types.
- Yes — the service is modular. Some clients engage us for a concept and a test fit. Some bring an approved design and need only the council and documentation stages. Some take our drawings and run the build themselves. You pay for the stages you need, not a full package.
- Concept is where options are explored — multiple layout directions, spatial approaches, look-and-feel intent. Design development is where you pick one and move forward with it. The layout gets resolved and the direction is agreed, and only then do we move into the details. Think of concept as "here are the possibilities" and design development as "this is the one we’re developing".
- Not necessarily, but it’s where most projects lose the design intent. Even a great contractor working from a great drawing set will make a hundred decisions on site — finishes that turn out to be unavailable, services that clash, dimensions that need tweaking. Stage 5 means an architect is in the room when those decisions get made, so the built result matches what was designed. Optional, but worth it on projects where the design is the point.
- It depends entirely on scope. A test fit on a single floor can be a few weeks. A full design engagement — from brief through to construction completion — runs the length of the project, months. We’ll give you a timeline alongside the proposal.
Start a conversation
Tell us about the space.
Send us the address and what you're trying to decide or achieve — a test fit, a board-ready concept, or a tender-ready set. We come back with a scoped design package and a fixed price. No call required.