Breach of contractor

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Ellen and Paul Bishop of Bishop Design Associates.

The struggle to find good-quality contractors willing to take on smaller-scale jobs is breeding reliance on boutique and foreign outfits, say industry experts.

While a solid stream of work is cause for industry celebration, finding capable contractors willing to take on smaller jobs has become a real challenge as a result, say leading Dubai-based designers.

While this is a trend that has been brewing for some time, it could be coming up to crunch time, said Kenneth Laidler, chairman of the Association of Professional Interior Designers (APID), who foresees an increased reliance on foreign contractors as a result. "It could hardly be more of a problem than it is now," he maintained.

A sense of frustration is pervading the industry, as larger contractors that made their name working on projects by big-name designers are now perceived as reluctant to take on jobs that are not of a certain scale. "The bigger ones have moved on," said Paul Bishop, owner of Bishop Design Associates.

High demand is also having an inevitable impact on pricing structures. "It's a seller's market out there at the moment and I think that is a little bit unhealthy. Contractors are charging extortionate rates at the moment out in the market - because they can. It's because of demand.

"A lot of them have moved on; they all want tower roll-outs or bank roll outs, for example. It's big money for them and it is repeat business because of the volume. So they're not interested in a AED5 million food and beverage project. Which is huge, or at least it used to be huge. To get a budget like that is great.

"We recently worked on a project with a budget like that - and it was still difficult to get a contractor that was actually willing and committed to the job," Paul Bishop continued.

Budget considerations aside, designers have also identified an unwillingness on behalf of contractors to commit to projects that are viewed as too time-consuming or complicated. "A lot of them don't want the complexity of an avant garde, one-off design because it is complex, it is time consuming and obviously, sometimes they can't even deliver the goods; it's not even achievable for them to do," he continued.

While there are still some players willing to take projects on for their quality and value, others are driven entirely by the numbers - and the result is an unavoidable drop in quality.

"A lot of the reputed contractors that we used to work with obviously maintain that kind of kudos where they will take projects for the design content and value, whereas others won't. Others just want to become money machines."

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