Can you renovate an office without shutting down?
In most cases, yes. The office is split into phases, noisy work moves to evenings and weekends, and the team relocates to the finished part while the rest is being done. For budgeting, we work with three levels: Basic from €1,000/m², Standard from €2,000/m² and Luxury from €3,000/m², all excluding VAT. A 150 m² office at Standard level starts at around €300,000. The exact figure comes from the quote, after a site visit and measurements.
A phased renovation costs more and takes longer than working in an empty unit. The crew has to come back several times, and temporary partitions and moving equipment around are not free. If the company can close during the bulk of the works, it is almost always faster and cheaper. We decide this with you at the first meeting, once it is clear which areas can stop and which have to run every single day.
What to check before the quote
We start with what the floor plan does not show. How much electrical capacity is contracted, and whether it will cover the new workstations, the air conditioning and the kitchenette. The condition of the distribution board, the suspended ceiling and the existing HVAC units. Where the building’s risers and downpipes run, and whether they can be touched.
If you rent the space, read the lease before commissioning a design. The landlord usually has to approve the works, and at the end of the lease you may be required to hand the unit back in its original condition. A glass partition you will have to take down in five years is planned differently from one that stays for good. The type of licencia de obras and the rules for your activity are confirmed with the Ajuntament for each unit; our guide on activity licences for commercial premises covers that in more detail.
How we split the works into phases
The usual sequence looks like this. Phase one is the area the office can live without for a couple of weeks: meeting rooms, storage, part of the open-plan floor. That is where the first days of demolition and new cable runs are concentrated. Once it is finished, the team moves in and we close off the next zone.
Demolition, chasing walls, cutting tiles and drilling into concrete are scheduled for evenings and weekends. In Eixample buildings with residents upstairs, hours for noisy work are limited by the comunidad de propietarios and by municipal rules, so the timetable is agreed in advance with the building administrator, together with use of the lift and protection of the entrance hall. A dust-tight partition separates the working office from the site, and where the layout allows, the crew uses a separate entrance. Moving the server rack and network gear is planned for a Friday evening so that everything is up and running on Monday.
Power and data: mistakes that are expensive to fix
An office depends on power and networking far more than a home does. The classic mistake is sizing sockets for today’s headcount. A year later there are more people, and new cables end up running over the finished walls. We leave spare capacity in the routes: cable trays in the ceiling void, floor boxes under the desks and reserve circuits back to the board.
The server cabinet gets its own attention. It needs ventilation or cooling, a dedicated circuit and room for maintenance. Wi-Fi access points are positioned according to the furniture plan, not wherever suits the electrician. At the end, an authorised installer issues the electrical installation certificate, which your energy supplier and your insurer will ask for.
Climate, acoustics and light for real work
In an office, comfort turns straight into productivity. An open-plan floor without acoustic treatment on the ceiling gets loud within weeks. A glass meeting room without proper seals can be heard from the corridor. Heating and cooling are zoned, because a ten-person meeting room and the director’s office do not warm up the same way or at the same time of day.
Lighting is designed for screen work: no glare on monitors, even light across the desks and a warmer tone in the break area. All of this is decided before the ceilings are closed. Afterwards, changing it means redoing the finishes.
Case in point: a child psychology centre in the Eixample
From January to June 2026 we fitted out a 250 m² child psychology centre in the Eixample. Its requirements are very close to an office: consulting rooms where quiet is non-negotiable, shared areas and a fixed opening date. The project included 24 concealed doors, air conditioning with heat recovery and the legalisation of the healthcare activity.
The concealed doors gave a calm corridor with no visual clutter. Heat recovery brings in fresh air with the windows shut, which matters a lot for rooms facing a busy street. The activity paperwork ran in parallel with the works, so the centre could open right after handover. The same approach works for a law firm, a family office or a studio: first define what the space has to do, then choose the finishes.
What to bring to the first conversation
Send us the floor area, a plan of the unit if you have one, the number of workstations today and in two or three years, and tell us whether you can close the office for at least part of the works. If you rent, include what the lease says about alterations. We reply to enquiries within an hour and run projects in Russian and Spanish.
Next come the site visit, measurements and the quote. Our own crew does the work, specialist trades go to subcontractors we have vetted, and one person is responsible for the whole site. Payments follow the contract, stage by stage, so you pay for what has already been built.