Connaught Place is the most rule-bound address we work at in Delhi, and the reason is worth understanding rather than working around. The circles are a protected colonnade. What faces the corridor is not yours to change on your own authority, whatever your lease says. Inside the suite you have far more freedom, and that is where almost all of our work here happens.
What you can change, and what you cannot
Inside your suite - cabins, meeting rooms, reception fronts, internal doors - the work is ordinary and we do it often.
The frontage is different. The colonnade is heritage-controlled, so the shopfront line, the corridor face and anything visible from the circle is governed by more than your landlord. Changing it needs approval, and approval takes time that has nothing to do with how long glass takes to make.
We are straightforward about this at the enquiry, because the alternative is worse. Starting work on a frontage without clearance ends in a stop-work notice and a half-fitted opening, which is the one situation in this trade where nobody wins. If your job touches the front, budget the approval time first and the glass second.
Old lifts, and moving material at night
The buildings here are old and so are the lifts. Many take a panel no longer than about six feet on the diagonal, and a good number of upper-floor suites have no usable service lift at all.
Material movement through the circles is also restricted during the day. In practice that means panels arrive at night or very early, and are carried in through the corridor when it is empty.
Both of those facts change the labour rather than the glass, and we show them that way in the quote. A CP fit-out costs more to install than the same square footage in a modern tower, and it is fairer to say so in the first price than to discover it as an extra.
Fitting out a suite that stays open
Most CP suites are occupied while they are being changed. That is workable, and it needs planning rather than optimism.
We work in sections, finish each one properly, and hand it back usable rather than leaving three half-done rooms across a floor. Dust is contained where the cutting happens. Anything that has to be drilled is drilled early in the session.
And because these are almost all leased suites, we ask one question at the start that changes the build: does it come out at the end? An aluminium-framed system unbolts from floor and ceiling and leaves the structure as it was. Frameless glass on patch fittings is drilled in, looks better, and is a harder thing to reverse. Neither is wrong. Your lease decides.
