Brief Wizard — Frequently asked

It means a written reply from a project lead — not an automated acknowledgment — within two working days of the brief landing in the studio. Working days are Monday through Saturday, excluding Indian national holidays. If the brief is submitted on Friday evening, the reply lands by Tuesday close. The reply itself is substantive: it acknowledges the project, summarises what we have understood from the brief, identifies the three or four engineering questions we need answered before we can scope further, and proposes a next step (call, site visit or written follow-up). For larger projects (hospitality, healthcare, education) the first reply may include a preliminary fee proposal for the design stage; for residential we typically scope the conversation before quoting.

By an engineer. The studio does not run a separate sales function — the first reply to your brief comes from one of the practice leads who would actually be responsible for delivering your project. This is a deliberate choice; we believe the first conversation with a client should be a technical conversation, not a qualification call. The trade-off is that we take a little longer to reply than firms with sales pipelines, and we sometimes decline projects that are not a fit. The benefit is that every conversation that starts with us has a credible engineering thread from the first message.

Less than most clients assume, and different from what most assume. We need: (1) the project type and location — residence, hotel, hospital, retail, office. (2) the rough scope — what disciplines are in scope (AV, lighting, security, BMS, fire, networking). (3) the project stage — concept, schematic design, tender, post-tender, retrofit. (4) the architect or designer involved (if any). (5) any drawings, even rough ones — a hand sketch of the floor plate is more useful than a polished brochure. We do NOT need: budget, brand preferences, specific products, or a technical specification. We will arrive at those together through the design conversation. Sending a long technical wish-list at brief stage often slows the conversation rather than speeds it.

Usually one or two structured conversations. The first reply identifies what we need to confirm to scope properly. The second conversation (call, video or site visit) walks through the architecture, the operational pattern and the project deadlines. After that we send a written design proposal: scope of design services, fee, timeline and deliverables. Design is always a paid engagement — we do not give away technical design work as a sales activity, because the moment we do, the design quality degrades. The design proposal is a fixed fee for a defined deliverable; the construction work is quoted separately once design is at a stage where quantities can be confirmed.

Yes, with operational constraints. The studio is in Guwahati; we deliver across North-East India, West Bengal and Bhutan as the home territory. For projects in metros (Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad) and outside India (GCC, neighbouring SAARC countries), we engage on three conditions: (1) the project is large enough to justify the travel and remote-coordination overhead — typically reference cinema, full-service hotel, hospital or premium villa scale; (2) the architectural team is on board with a remote-coordinated integrator; (3) we have on-the-ground installation partners we can validate. We do not do retail-scale projects outside our delivery footprint — the economics and the post-handover service relationship do not work.