Give the client a cost band before the concept

Most residential projects in Abuja fail at the same place: the design is loved before it is priced. By the time a bill of quantities exists, the client is emotionally committed to a building the budget cannot carry, and the value engineering that follows strips exactly the parts that made the design worth building.

We invert it. Before any concept leaves the office, the site, the soil report and the programme are used to produce a cost band — a range, honestly wide, with the assumptions written next to it. The client decides on the band first.

The effect is that design decisions become trade-offs instead of losses. A double-height volume is not deleted at week nine; it is chosen at week two against a specific number.