Question 1

What services does SMA+Design offer?

Accepted Answer

Four things. Architectural design: complete architecture services for houses, commercial, and industrial clients, designed on paper and in physical models, documented in Revit, with visualizations shown to you at every stage. Commercial and hospitality spaces: bakeries, retail, and offices, where the quality of the space matters to the people in it. Industrial architecture: factories and production facilities, including facilities for medical device manufacturing. And bespoke furniture: one-off pieces designed and built for specific spaces, to the same standard as the architecture.

Question 2

Where does the studio work?

Accepted Answer

The studio is based in Phase 4, DHA Lahore. Built work includes residences in DHA Lahore, Bahria Town Lahore, and DHA Islamabad, and commercial projects in Lahore. The studio takes on projects in Lahore, Islamabad, and beyond.

Question 3

What is the design process like?

Accepted Answer

Five stages. Listen: understand the brief beyond the brief, including what you need but have not said yet, and what the site demands. Draw: work the design out on paper, drawn and redrawn and argued over through many more iterations than a client ever sees, because a pen keeps pace with thinking in a way software does not. Show: present visualizations at every stage, so you can see the space instead of decoding a drawing. Resolve: build physical models and 3D prints to test critical junctions and find problems before construction does. Build: Revit turns the resolved design into a production set, and the build team builds to the same level of detail the design team produced.

Question 4

Do I need to know how to read architectural drawings?

Accepted Answer

No. Most people commissioning a building cannot read a technical drawing, and expecting them to is a failure of communication, not a failure of the client. At SMA+Design, every design stage comes with visualizations that let you walk through the space before it is built, so you understand what you are agreeing to and can push back when something is not right.

Question 5

What size of project does the studio take on?

Accepted Answer

There is no fixed minimum. Built work ranges from a 4,500 square foot house on a 10-marla plot to an 18,000 square foot residence, alongside commercial interiors and industrial facilities. The quality of the brief matters more than the size of the budget.

Question 6

How does SMA+Design charge for architectural design?

Accepted Answer

By built area. The design fee is set per square foot of the space being designed and agreed once the brief and scope are clear, so you know the number before design begins. It covers the full service, from concept through construction documents, designed on paper and produced in Revit, with visualizations at every stage. The studio does not publish a fixed rate, because the right fee depends on the scope and the standard of detail a project calls for.

Question 7

Does SMA+Design handle construction as well as design?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The studio runs two teams side by side: a design team and a build team. This exists for one reason: so the detail designed in the studio is the detail that gets built. If the finished building differs from the drawings, the studio treats that as its own failure, not a normal part of construction.

Question 8

Is construction priced separately from the design fee?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The design fee and the cost of construction are billed separately. You can commission the studio for design alone, or for design and construction together, where the in-house build team builds to the detail the design team drew. Construction is costed against the specific materials, finishes, and scope of your project, not estimated from a single blanket figure.

Question 9

How long does it take to design and build a house in Lahore?

Accepted Answer

A few months to design, and around two years to build. That is the realistic shape for a house held to a serious standard. Some run longer for good reason: P7 House, a 7,800 square foot residence in DHA Lahore in raw concrete, project-specific terrazzo, and rosewood joinery, took three years, because its detail and the curing that detail required were exceptional. The design phase is deliberately heavy at the start, since problems found on paper, in physical prototypes and in the drawing set are cheap to fix there and expensive to fix on site. Breaking ground in winter helps, so the structure and the waterproofing are tested by the monsoon while there is still time to correct anything.

Question 10

Why do so many of the studio’s houses have courtyards?

Accepted Answer

Because of the context, not a style preference. In a neighborhood that offers little to look at, the house turns inward. The courtyard, open to sky, planted, and private, becomes the thing the house is organized around. The street gets a facade; the family gets the garden. This has been the studio’s position since its first project in 2013.

Question 11

How do I start a project with SMA+Design?

Accepted Answer

Email contact@salmanmirza.com with a description of your plot, your requirements, and your ambitions. The studio responds within 48 hours. The first conversation is about the brief: what you need, what the site demands, and whether the studio is the right fit for the work.