Interior design
How an interior design studio runs a project in Cyprus
How a studio-run interior project in Cyprus actually runs, from brief to handover: the drawing stages, the sign-offs, and where programmes slip.
8 min read
Photo: Oleksandra Zelena on Pexels
Elena covers interior design, furniture and lighting for Cypriot homes. Her focus is the gap between a scheme drawn for a northern European climate and one that survives this light, this heat and, near the coast, this salt.
Published
A studio-run interior project in Cyprus is a sequence of drawing packages, each one signed off before the next begins: brief and measured survey, space plan, concept, developed design and specification, production drawings, tender, site stage, handover. What you are buying from a studio rather than an individual is the capacity to produce those packages in parallel and to coordinate the other consultants and the contractor around them.
The sequence matters because every one of those packages is a decision gate. Work that goes to a contractor without a finish schedule and a joinery package gets priced defensively and built approximately. Work that goes out with them gets priced tightly, and the arguments happen on paper, where they are cheap.
Overview and timeline
Three project shapes share the name, and they behave differently.
- A single room or a refresh. Space plan, finishes, joinery, lighting. Weeks of design, and the programme is set by lead times rather than by drawing.
- A whole-apartment or villa fit-out. The standard studio job. Months of design before anyone is on site, because services layouts and joinery have to be resolved together.
- Hospitality and commercial. Adds statutory approvals, other consultants and a fixed opening date, which reverses the whole programme: everything is back-planned from the day the doors have to open.
Across all three, the design programme is rarely what makes a project long. The three things that do are decision latency on your side, the statutory route where one applies, and imported lead times. A studio can run a concept and a technical package concurrently. It cannot compress a permit or a shipping schedule.
Before you start
Write the brief before you meet anyone. Room by room: who uses it, what stays, what has to go, what you already own that must fit. A studio working from a written brief produces a comparable proposal. One working from a conversation produces its own interpretation of your project.
Ask who will actually run the job. This is the real difference between studios. Some put a director in the meeting and a junior on the drawings; others name a project lead who stays with you to handover. Ask for the name, and ask how many projects that person is carrying.
Check the registrations. A studio trading as a limited company is on the Registrar's file under Companies Law Cap. 113. Anyone certifying drawings for permitted work must be ETEK-registered. Many interior designers are not, which is an ordinary arrangement rather than a problem — but then somebody else certifies, and the appointment should name who.
Choose the delivery route. Design-only, design plus procurement, or turnkey where the studio also carries the build. Each puts the coordination risk in a different place, and the answer changes what the drawings need to contain.
Insist on a measured survey. As-built drawings for older Cypriot stock rarely match the building. Concrete frames move, partitions were added, and a joinery package drawn from a landlord's plan will not fit. This is the cheapest thing you can pay for and the most expensive thing to skip.
Let the location set the specification. Inland, Nicosia has the widest temperature range on the island, which pushes insulation, glazing and internal shading up the priority list. On directly exposed frontage such as Kato Paphos the air carries salt, so ironmongery, external joinery and fixings need to be galvanised or marine grade. In central Limassol, high-rise development has made balcony waterproofing and facade condition a live issue, and a fit-out that touches a balcony threshold needs to know what is under it.
Each row carries its sample size and the date it was recorded. Use it to sanity-check the shape of a proposal rather than to price your project.
The stages in order
Brief and measured survey
The studio measures, photographs, records existing services and identifies what constrains the design. Everything downstream is drawn on top of this, so an inaccurate survey is an error that compounds.
Space plan
Layout, circulation, where walls and openings sit, where services need to be. Cheap to change and expensive to change later. Do not move past it until the plan works for how the household actually lives.
Concept
Material and finish direction, colour, lighting character, joinery language, with enough visual material to decide from. Sign off the direction, not individual products — those come next.
Developed design and specification
The concept resolved into named products: tiles, stone, paint references, ironmongery, sanitaryware, appliances, lighting. This is where lead times get checked, and where a substitution costs an email rather than a variation.
Statutory route, where it applies
Where the work is permitted work, the ETEK-registered professional prepares and certifies the submission and it goes to the planning authority. Run this in parallel with production drawings, not after them.
Production drawings
Joinery package, lighting and switching layouts, services point positions, tiling setting-out, finish schedules. This is the package a contractor prices and builds from, and its quality decides how much of the build is arguments.
Tender and appointment
The package goes to more than one contractor, queries are answered centrally, and the returns are levelled so you are comparing the same scope. Two prices against different assumptions are not two prices.
Site stage
Site meetings at an agreed frequency, sample and benchmark approvals, and resolution of what the survey did not find. Get the first tiled area, the first joinery unit and the first painted wall approved as benchmarks before the rest is made.
Snagging and handover
A room-by-room walk against the drawings, a written list with owners and dates, and the as-built record with the final specification schedule.
Where projects usually slip
The statutory route discovered late. A wall that turns out to be structural, or an opening that changes the elevation, converts a design job into a permitted one. Found at survey it costs weeks; found at production drawings it costs months.
Management committee approval. In apartment blocks, anything touching common property, risers or the facade needs the committee, which meets when it meets. Start that conversation at space plan stage.
Sample and benchmark approvals. Stone, tile and timber all vary between batches. Approving a photograph rather than the actual delivered batch is one of the most common causes of a rip-out.
Imported lead times. A large share of specified furniture, sanitaryware and lighting arrives by sea. Confirm lead times at specification, not at order.
Short refurbishment windows. In the holiday-let stock of Protaras and the surrounding coast, the property earns for most of the year and the works window is narrow and fixed. Every design gate has to be back-planned from the date the building is handed back, and a package that lands a fortnight late loses the season, not the fortnight.
Coastal respecification. External ironmongery and fixings specified from a catalogue average corrode fast on exposed frontage. Catching it at developed design is a substitution; catching it on site is a variation.
August. Workshops, suppliers and consultants all thin out. Programme around it rather than discovering it.
What you sign off
The space plan. In writing, before concept work starts. It is the decision everything else depends on.
The concept direction. Approving a direction, with the products still open, keeps flexibility where it is useful.
The finish and specification schedule. Product names, codes, colours, grout, sealant and paint references. This is the document you will want years later when something needs matching, and the one people most often fail to keep.
Benchmarks on site. The first of each finish, approved physically. Photographs are not benchmarks.
Handover. The closed snagging list, the as-built drawing set in a format you can open without the studio's software, warranties, and the maintenance notes for anything that needs them — stone sealing, timber, external finishes.
If you are still choosing, the interior design service pages and the district area pages here list studios by documented specialism, the projects they show and their registration status, which is what can actually be verified.
Common questions
Do you need a permit for interior design studio work in Cyprus?
Not for the design itself. The permit follows what the design does to the building. Finishes, joinery, lighting positions, furniture and non-structural alterations inside an existing dwelling normally sit outside the permit system. Structural change, alterations to the envelope, new or altered openings and changes of use require a building permit through the Department of Town Planning and Housing, with drawings certified by an ETEK-registered professional. Settle which applies at survey stage, because it sets the programme.
How long does a studio project take?
Ask instead how long each gate takes and who holds it. Design production is usually the predictable part. The variable parts are how quickly you approve the space plan and the specification, whether a permit is in the route, and what the lead times are on the items you have chosen. A studio can tell you the first at appointment and the third at developed design; the second is yours.
What does a studio give me that an individual designer does not?
Capacity and continuity, mostly. A studio can run drawing production, procurement and site attendance at the same time, and it does not stop when one person is unwell or on another job. An individual designer can be the better answer on a small, well-defined scheme. The question worth asking either way is who produces the drawings and who attends site — the answer is what you are buying.
Who talks to the contractor?
Agree this in writing at appointment, because it is where most site disputes start. Under a design-only appointment, instructions to the contractor come from you and the studio advises. Where the studio administers the contract, it issues instructions and you approve variations. What does not work is both of you instructing separately.
Can a studio work outside its home district?
Most Cypriot practices work island-wide but keep a home district where they know the trades and the suppliers. That matters more than travel time: a studio working away from its base is coordinating contractors it has not worked with before. Ask which district the site team will come from, and how site attendance is charged when the project is not local to them.
Interior design studios listed by district
8 companies covering this area.
Polart Construction
Strovolos Iii, Nicosia
Polart Construction is an architecture practice in Strovolos Iii, in the Nicosia district. Recorded services include planning submissions, drawings, site supervision.
- Planning submissions
- Drawings
- Site supervision
Karyatides
Strovolos, Nicosia
Karyatides is an architecture practice in Strovolos, in the Nicosia district. Recorded services include planning submissions, drawings, site supervision.
- Planning submissions
- Drawings
- Site supervision
Andreas Vlittis
Paralimni, Famagusta
Andreas Vlittis is an architecture practice in Paralimni, in the Famagusta district. Recorded services include planning submissions, drawings, site supervision.
- Planning submissions
- Drawings
- Site supervision
Nicolaides Viana Partnership
Limassol Centre, Limassol
Nicolaides Viana Partnership is an architecture practice in Limassol Centre, in the Limassol district. Recorded services include planning submissions, drawings, site supervision.
- Planning submissions
- Drawings
- Site supervision
P. A. Constructions Ltd.
Engomi, Nicosia
P. A. Constructions Ltd. is an architecture practice in Engomi, in the Nicosia district. Recorded services include planning submissions, drawings, site supervision.
- Planning submissions
- Drawings
- Site supervision
Andreas S. Hadjizacharias Ltd
Agios Nikolaos, Limassol
Andreas S. Hadjizacharias Ltd is an architecture practice in Agios Nikolaos, in the Limassol district. Recorded services include planning submissions, drawings, site supervision.
- Planning submissions
- Drawings
- Site supervision
Uds Architects
Limassol Centre, Limassol
Uds Architects is an architecture practice in Limassol Centre, in the Limassol district. Recorded services include planning submissions, drawings, site supervision.
- Planning submissions
- Drawings
- Site supervision
Fabretti Construction
Agioi Omologites, Nicosia
Fabretti Construction is an architecture practice in Agioi Omologites, in the Nicosia district. Recorded services include planning submissions, drawings, site supervision.
- Planning submissions
- Drawings
- Site supervision
Sources
- ETEK — Cyprus Scientific and Technical Chamber — retrieved 2026-07-28
- Department of Town Planning and Housing — retrieved 2026-07-28
- Department of Registrar of Companies and Intellectual Property — retrieved 2026-07-28
01More on this topic
Same cluster.Different question.
Thinking of doing this?Get up to five quotes, free.
Describe the project and we will gather proposals from designers who have done something similar.