Grey Structure Construction Services in Lahore and Islamabad
Avenir Developments is Pakistan’s leading luxury design and build company. Our PCATP & PEC licensed team delivers world‑class architecture, interiors and construction across DHA Lahore, DHA Islamabad, Bahria Town Lahore and approved housing societies within LDA, CDA, RDA and others.
Grey Structure Construction in Lahore, Islamabad and Rawalpindi
The structure is the part of your house you cannot correct later. We price it from your drawings rather than from a rate card, put the items other firms invoice separately inside the scope, and put an architect on site to confirm the building matches the set it was approved on.
Where grey structure starts, and where it stops
Grey structure is the building's load-carrying frame and enclosure. Excavation and foundations, the RCC columns, beams, slabs, lintels and staircase, masonry, the roof slab, the underground tank and the drainage inside your plot, and the conduits and sleeves cast into the structure for electrical and plumbing routes.
That definition is not where projects go wrong. Every firm in Lahore will give you roughly the same one.
The edge is where they go wrong. Plaster, the boundary wall, the main gate, the mumty, the overhead tank, roof treatment, basement waterproofing and the backfill around the foundations sit inside some grey structure contracts and outside others. Both versions are legitimate. Neither is a default. A rate quoted against an unstated edge is not a rate at all, and holding two of them side by side tells you nothing, because they describe different buildings.
So the question worth asking is not what grey structure means. It is what your contract says it covers, line by line, before you sign it. Where one appointment covering design and construction suits you better, that is complete construction under one contract, and the wider picture sits on our construction services page.
Two terms, glossed once
- RCC
- Reinforced cement concrete. Concrete cast around a designed cage of steel. It carries the building, and it is the one part that cannot be corrected later without demolition.
- Mumty
- The small covered structure over the staircase at roof level. Whether it sits inside the grey structure scope varies by contract, and whether it counts against your covered area varies by authority.
What a grey structure contract should cover, item by item
Below is where we draw each line, and which items you should ask any firm to state in writing. An item with a tick in the third column is not a trick question. It is genuinely variable across the market, which is exactly why it has to be named.
The approved submission set, the structural drawings, and a bill of quantities priced from them.
Plaster, boundary wall, mumty, tanks, roof treatment and backfill each named as in or out.
Every change described, priced and approved in writing before the work starts.
Key to the section
- 1Excavation, PCC and foundationsIncluded
- 2Damp proof course and plinthIncluded
- 3Anti-termite treatment to sub-structureIncluded
- 4RCC columns, beams, lintels and staircaseIncluded
- 5Brickwork and blockworkIncluded
- 6Roof slab and parapet wallsIncluded
- 7MumtyConfirm
- 8Overhead water tankIncluded
- 9Underground water tankIncluded
- 10Septic tank and soakageIncluded
- 11Boundary wall and gate columnsIncluded
- 12Internal and external plasterConfirm
- 13Main gate, driveway and external developmentNamed separately
- 14Flooring, paint, joinery and fittingsNot in grey structure
The same line, item by item
| Item | Avenir grey structure scope | Ask every firm to state this |
|---|---|---|
| Setting out, excavation, backfill and disposal within the plot | Included | |
| PCC, foundations and damp proof course | Included | |
| Anti-termite treatment to sub-structure | Included | |
| RCC columns, beams, slabs, lintels and staircase | Included | |
| Brickwork and blockwork | Included | |
| Roof slab and parapet walls | Included | Yes |
| Roof treatment and insulation | [Confirm: stated per quotation] | Yes |
| Underground water tank | Included | Yes |
| Overhead water tank | Included | Yes |
| Septic tank, soakage and drainage within the plot | Included | Yes |
| Boundary wall and gate columns | Included | Yes |
| Conduits, sleeves and cast-in provisions to the MEP drawings | Included | |
| Internal and external plaster | [Confirm: stated per quotation] | Yes |
| Ceiling plaster | [Confirm: stated per quotation] | Yes |
| Mumty | [Confirm: stated per quotation] | Yes |
| Main gate, external development and driveway | Separately quoted and named | Yes |
| Basement waterproofing and dewatering | Separately assessed against soil and water table | Yes |
| Scaffolding, shuttering, curing and site protection | Included | |
| Material testing where named in the BOQ | Included | |
| Electrical wiring, boards and fittings | Not in grey structure | |
| Plumbing fixtures and sanitary ware | Not in grey structure | |
| Flooring, tiling, paint, joinery and false ceilings | Not in grey structure | |
| Utility connections, authority fees and society charges | Arranged separately | |
| Soil investigation | Arranged separately |
Already been given a grey structure rate?
Send it over with your drawings. We will tell you what it does not cover, and you can use that list on whoever you appoint.
Why the first number you hear is always the lowest
Almost every client who reaches this page has already been given a rate. Usually a confident one, delivered quickly, often on the phone, and almost always before anybody looked at a drawing.
That confidence is the product. A contractor who can name a rate for basement work and for ground plus first floor without asking a single question about your plot is demonstrating fluency, and to somebody who has never built before, fluency reads as expertise.
It is worth being precise about what has actually been demonstrated. A rate given before the drawings exist cannot have been calculated, because the two largest quantities in any grey structure, concrete and reinforcement, are fixed by the structural design rather than by the plot size. What you have been shown is not a price. It is a memorised number that sounds like one.
The number in the video
The same thing now happens at scale on social media. Reels filmed on live grey structure sites, with a rate on screen that sits below what the market can actually deliver. The footage is real. The rate is real too, in the sense that somebody said it out loud. What is missing is the scope it attaches to, the conditions in the contract behind it, and the drawings it was never measured against. The format does something subtler as well. A firm posting site after site looks busy, busy looks like scale, and scale looks like the reason they can charge less. Volume does not lower the price of steel.
Why the number only moves after you are committed
The sequence is the whole mechanism. Attract on rate, sign, then recover. Once an agreement exists and the first payment has moved, your position changes completely. What is left is to accept a specification thinner than the one you thought you were buying, or to pay the difference and finish the house. Most people pay, because the plot is open and stopping costs more than continuing. None of this requires anybody to lie. It requires only that the scope was never written down, the quantities were never measured, and the conditions were never read by somebody who knew what they meant.
What happened when one client went back with his drawings
A client came to us holding a rate he had seen in a video. We explained what we do instead: read the architectural, structural and MEP drawings, look at the plot conditions including the soil report where the ground calls for one, take off the quantities, and price a verified bill of quantities.
He said, reasonably enough, that a firm running that many projects must be able to build at the number it was publishing. We did not argue. We suggested he go to their office and discuss his project properly, with his drawings in his hand.
He did. Once the drawings were on the table the rate went up. When he read the terms attached to it, the conditions were written so that the final figure would have landed well above what the market charges. He came back and told us. That trip cost him an afternoon, and it was the cheapest afternoon he spent on that project.
The reason the market can keep doing this
There is a reason this keeps working, and it is not that clients are careless.
Almost nobody builds twice. A plot owner looks for an architect once and a construction company once, and then never buys either service again in their life. No repeat purchase means no correction mechanism. A firm that overruns the budget, misses the programme or delivers thin workmanship has not lost a customer it was ever going to see again. It moves on to the next client, who has no way of knowing any of it.
So the signals that work in most markets do not work in this one. A large follower count is not evidence. A busy site is not evidence. What survives contact with a real project is narrower than that: the drawings, the measured quantities, the named specification and the written conditions. All four exist before you sign, or they do not exist at all.
What we do instead
We do not issue a grey structure rate against a plot size, and we will not give you one on a first call. A quotation follows the architectural, structural and MEP drawings, the plot conditions and soil report where the ground requires one, quantities measured from that set, and a verified bill of quantities. If you do not have the full set, we tell you what is missing and what completing it involves before anybody discusses a number.
Planning ranges, the calculator and the trade-by-trade breakdown sit on our cost hub rather than being repeated here, because rates move and one maintained source is more reliable than several copies drifting apart. A planning range tells you whether a project is broadly within reach. It cannot become a quotation, because it is not attached to your drawings.
The items that arrive later as a second invoice
Ask a contractor for a grey structure rate and you will usually get one number, then a series of smaller ones. Septic tank. Overhead water tank. Boundary wall. Gate columns. Parapet walls. Each is presented as an addition rather than an omission, and each is technically defensible, because none of them was ever inside the quoted scope.
They are also all unavoidable. You cannot occupy a house without a septic arrangement, and in most societies you cannot leave a plot without a boundary wall. So the question was never whether you would pay for these things. It was whether you knew about them at the moment you compared two numbers.
We put them inside the scope. One figure, covering the building you will actually end up with rather than the part of it that photographs well.
Inside our grey structure figure
- Septic tank
- Overhead water tank
- Underground water tank
- Boundary wall
- Gate columns
- Parapet walls
- Backfilling and compaction
- External PCC, ramp and walkway
Quoted separately, and named
- Main gate
- External development and driveway
- Landscaping and outdoor structures
- Basement waterproofing and dewatering
- Soil investigation
- Authority fees and society charges
- Utility connections and deposits
- Anything the drawings do not show
The second list is quoted separately and named just as explicitly. A separate item that is written down is not a hidden cost. It becomes one the moment it is left unwritten.
So when you set our number against a lower one, the first thing to establish is not the rate. It is whether the two numbers describe the same building.
The person running your site can read the drawings
Construction management at Avenir sits with an architect. That was a deliberate decision rather than an organisational accident, and it follows from something fairly obvious once stated: the person best placed to confirm a building is being built as drawn is somebody who produces drawings for a living.
It is worth naming the alternative, because it is common on houses of exactly this size. There are contractors and builders working on 1 Kanal and 2 Kanal projects in this market who cannot read a structural drawing properly. They build to rules of thumb instead. A column size they always use, and a slab depth that has held up on every house they have poured, on plots that felt broadly similar.
Sometimes the rule of thumb is conservative and you pay for concrete nobody needed. Sometimes it is not, and you find out years later or never. Either way a rule of thumb cannot tell you when a drawing is wrong, and catching that is the other half of the job.
Read against the set
Every element checked against the architectural, structural and MEP drawings rather than against habit. Bar schedules, column positions, slab depths and openings are verified from the drawing, not from memory.
Catch the clash before it is cast
A beam crossing a window head. A duct route passing through a beam with no opening designed for it. A drainage fall the slab depth cannot achieve. All three are cheap on paper and expensive in concrete.
Hold the design intent
Levels, soffits, openings and the finishes the drawings assumed, protected through the stages of a build where they are easiest to lose and hardest to recover.
It also changes who you are arguing with when something does not work on site. Where the design and the build sit with one firm, there is no seam to argue across, and nobody has an incentive to describe a buildability problem as a construction problem or the reverse. This is also what our project consultancy and architecture teams do on every project we design ourselves.
What happens after you message us
You send the society, the plot size and whatever drawings you have. We confirm we build there and which authority governs it.
We read the set against itself and against the approval, and tell you in writing what is missing.
You receive a quotation built from measured quantities, with the scope line written item by item.
Why the same house is not the same structure in Lahore and Islamabad
A grey structure is the only part of a house that argues with the ground. Finishing does not care what sits under your plot. Foundations, retaining walls, basement waterproofing and the reinforcement in the frame all care a great deal, and every one of those is a grey structure item.
Two things change between our two markets. Both land in the structural drawings rather than the architectural ones, which is why they are invisible to a client comparing elevations and decisive for anyone comparing rates.
Seismic zone
Under the Building Code of Pakistan Seismic Provisions 2007, Lahore City and Lahore Cantt are listed in Zone 2A, a peak ground acceleration band of 0.08g to 0.16g. Rawalpindi, Taxila and Kahuta are listed in Zone 2B, which is 0.16g to 0.24g, and Islamabad falls in the same band. Murree is Zone 3. The consequence is not a different looking house. It is different detailing inside the concrete: confinement at column ends, tie spacing through beam and column joints, and where laps are allowed to fall. A frame designed for a plot in DHA Lahore and reused on a plot in Bahria Town Rawalpindi has not saved anybody money. It has been designed to the wrong zone.
Ground conditions
Lahore sits on deep alluvium and is comparatively uniform, which is precisely why soil investigation gets skipped there more often than anywhere else. Islamabad and Rawalpindi sit against the Margalla foothills, where the geology changes across short distances. Gravel and limestone conglomerate carries load well but can be difficult to excavate. Sandstone and mudstone may contain expansive clays. Stream channel and flood plain alluvium comes with a high water table, and the United States Geological Survey mapping of the Islamabad and Rawalpindi area records that material as liquefaction prone in an earthquake. Two plots in the same sector can want two different foundations.
On a 1 Kanal or larger plot in Islamabad or Rawalpindi we treat a soil investigation as part of the structural design rather than an optional extra. It costs less than any of the things it prevents, and the moment to spend it is before the drawings are frozen, not after the frame is up.
What your authority wants while the frame is still going up
Most plot owners expect to meet their authority twice. Once when the drawings are approved, and once when they ask for a completion certificate. For a grey structure that is the wrong mental model, because some of the authorities we build under want something from you during the structure rather than after it.
The cost of getting that wrong is not a fine. It is a completion certificate refused on a building that is already finished, with permanent utility connections sitting behind that certificate.
Covered area, setbacks, height, number of storeys, mumty extent and basement extent are all fixed the moment the frame is cast. They are checked against the approved submission drawings, not against the set you commissioned, and those two are not always the same drawings.
| Authority | Instrument we work to | What it wants before or during the structure | Where a grey structure trips it |
|---|---|---|---|
| DHA Lahore | DHA Construction and Development Regulations 2026, edition dated 20 April 2026 | A structural stability certificate at submission, plus a certificate from the registered architect that all components of the building were designed by them. | At completion, DHA asks for photographs of the finished elevation including the berm area, driveway and paved area, alongside the approved drawing set. What was built is compared against what was drawn. |
| DHA Islamabad | DHA Islamabad building control, alongside the ICT framework | Requirements differ by phase and plot category, and DHA Islamabad runs its own building control directorate. | We confirm the submission and inspection requirement with the directorate for your specific phase before quoting. We do not assume the DHA Lahore position applies. |
| LDA | LDA Building and Zoning Regulations 2019, as amended | A structure stability certificate, structural drawings and calculations vetted by a structural engineer on the LDA panel, above 38 ft. Basement area counts inside the floor area ratio. Where a building is erected near a drain or an excavation at a distance less than that excavation's depth, the builder has to satisfy the Authority that the foundations are safe. | A basement consumes floor area ratio before anything above ground is built. Panel vetting also takes time nobody has allowed for when it is discovered at the frame. |
| CDA and ICT | ICT Building Control Regulations 2020, SRO 1575(I)/2019, as amended | On Form A-2 the licensed architect and engineer give the Authority written notice that they have undertaken to supervise the work. On Form B-2 they certify at completion that it was carried out satisfactorily under that supervision. Completion plans are submitted as per actual construction at the site. | Supervision is a named, registered undertaking rather than an informal arrangement. Completion drawings show what you built, not what you drew, so a deviation in the frame appears on the page you hand in. |
| RDA | RDA Building and Zoning Regulations | Structure stability certification is staged. Form BR-6 accompanies the building application, BR-7 falls due on completion up to plinth level, and BR-8 on completion up to 38 ft of building height. Excavation likely to affect the stability of adjoining property cannot start or continue unless the Authority's conditions are met, and timbering is required where a fall of earth or rock exceeds 4 ft. | Two of those certificates fall due while the grey structure is in progress. A contractor who has never produced a BR-7 discovers that at plinth level, with the site already open. |
| Private societies | Society building control, alongside the relevant authority | Bahria Town, Lake City, Park View City and similar schemes run their own approval, their own scrutiny fee and their own site inspections. | Two approval routes instead of one, and society rules are sometimes stricter than the authority's. Both have to be satisfied. |
Form references and thresholds should be confirmed against the current edition before submission. Rules differ by authority, by phase, by plot category and by date, and they change. We confirm the requirement for your plot with the authority rather than working from what applied to a different plot last year. One provision is worth knowing because it settles arguments: under the DHA Lahore regulations a building constructed to drawings approved under an earlier edition is judged against that edition rather than the current one, and the completion certificate is issued accordingly.
One arithmetic trap is worth naming too, because it causes more covered area disputes than anything else. A marla is 225 sq ft under the modern standard and 272.25 sq ft in some legacy Punjab land records, and the DHA Lahore regulations define a kanal as 500 square yards, which is 4,500 sq ft on the 225 basis. State the basis once, at the top of the calculation. Leave it unstated and the discussion carries a 21 per cent error that nobody notices until submission.
The current DHA Lahore byelaw figures, cited to regulation number and edition
Find the society, and you have found the rulebook
The approval route is decided by who developed the land, not by which city you are in. A plot in Lake City and a plot a few kilometres away in DHA Phase 9 Prism sit in the same city under two different rulebooks, with different setbacks, different submission sets and different inspection habits.
This is the first thing we establish when a grey structure enquiry arrives, because it decides the drawings before it decides the price. Where the governing authority for a scheme is not obvious we confirm it rather than assume it, and the detail for each area sits on its own page.
Construction and site supervision run in Lahore, Islamabad and Rawalpindi. That limit is deliberate. A grey structure contract needs our team on site through the working week, and the checks described on this page are worth nothing if nobody is there to make them. Architecture, interior design and 3D visualisation are available more widely, including for clients building from abroad. Coverage detail sits on Lahore and Islamabad.
DHA Lahore phases
DHA Islamabad phases
Lahore societies
We will not price a grey structure before we know which rulebook the plot sits under. It changes the submission set, the setbacks, the permissible covered area, and in two of the cases above it changes what has to be certified while the frame is going up.
Building on a specific plot size? See 1 Kanal, 2 Kanal, 10 Marla, 8 Marla and 5 Marla house construction, or farmhouse construction. The full list of areas is on locations.
Two of the five authorities we build under want a certificate while your frame is still going up. Tell us the society and we will name which applies to your plot.
Check my plot and authorityThe checks that have to happen before the work disappears
Most of a grey structure vanishes. Reinforcement goes under concrete, conduits go under plaster, waterproofing goes under screed, and the backfill goes over the damp proof course. Once each of those is covered, the only way to inspect it is to break it open.
Which means the quality of a structure is not decided by how it looks at handover. It is decided at a small number of moments, most of them lasting a few hours, each either checked or not.
These are the ones we hold, on our own designs and on projects we build for other architects. Where a set needs structural or services development before any of this can be checked, that is structural and MEP coordination.
Before the excavation is backfilled
Foundation dimensions and levels against the structural drawing, damp proof course continuity, and termite treatment applied to the surfaces it was specified for. After backfill, none of this can be seen again.
Before any concrete is poured
Bar diameter, spacing, lap length and position against the bar bending schedule. Cover blocks in place. Column verticality, shuttering alignment and propping. Cover is the distance between the steel and the face of the concrete, and it is what stops the reinforcement corroding. It costs nothing to get right and cannot be corrected once the pour has started.
At the pour itself
Mix and slump, and that the concrete is placed and compacted rather than tipped and levelled. Cube samples taken where the bill of quantities specifies testing.
Through the curing window
Concrete gains most of its strength in the first week, and only if it is kept wet. Curing is the cheapest quality item on any site in Pakistan and the first one dropped when a job is running fast.
At plinth level
Under the RDA regulations this is a certification point rather than simply a milestone. On any project it is also the last cheap opportunity to confirm levels and setting out against the approved drawing.
Before plaster closes the walls
Conduit routes, sleeves and boxes checked against the MEP drawings, and photographed where they actually run rather than where they were drawn.
Before screed and tiling cover the waterproofing
Laps, upstands at the walls, and a water test held long enough to mean something. A membrane that fails shows up in the ceiling of the room below, and it usually shows up after everyone has left site.
You receive the record of each of these with photographs and dates. On a grey structure contract that record is not a courtesy. It is the evidence a finishing contractor, a surveyor, a bank or the next owner will ask for, and it is the only thing that can settle a disagreement about work nobody can still see.
What has to be named before you sign
A-category is not a specification. It is a phrase that allows a rate to be met later by substituting downward, inside the part of the building you will never see again.
Every item below is named in our quotation before signing. Each one is also checkable on site by somebody who is not an engineer, which is the point of naming it. Ask any firm you are considering for the same list. The ones who can produce it were going to build to it anyway.
| Item | What must be named | How you check it on site |
|---|---|---|
| Reinforcement steel | Grade and manufacturer | Mill certificate, and the tag on the bundle before it is cut |
| Cement | Brand and type | Delivery challan against the bags on site |
| Crush and aggregate | Source | Delivery challan. Margalla crush and local bajri are not interchangeable in a designed mix |
| Sand | Source, and whether it is washed | A jar of sand and water on the site office table settles it in an hour |
| Bricks or blocks | Class and source | Visual inspection of a delivered stack, and a drop test |
| Concrete | Grade named per element, not one mix for the house | The BOQ, then the cube test results |
| Cover to reinforcement | Stated per element | Cover blocks visible under the steel before the pour |
| Curing | Method and duration | Site photographs through the first week after each pour |
| Waterproofing | Product and number of coats | The product name on the drum, and the water test record |
| Anti-termite treatment | Product, concentration and the surfaces treated | The application record, dated, before backfill |
Brand is the part you can check. Quantity is the part that moves.
Most clients comparing two quotations compare brands, because brand is the only variable anybody has given them language for. The conversation becomes which cement, which sarya, which tile.
Brand matters and it should be named. But brand is rarely where the difference between two numbers actually lives. Quantity is. Steel tonnage against the bar bending schedule. Cement content per cubic metre of concrete. Wall thickness. Slab depth. How much of the specified reinforcement reaches the site, and how much of that stays in the cage.
Workmanship is the other half, and a quotation cannot show it at all. Compaction. Curing discipline. Cover held to the drawing rather than to whatever the cover block box contained that morning. Shuttering that produces a face worth plastering.
Which means a brand-for-brand comparison can be satisfied completely while the two buildings remain materially different. The check that works is the bill of quantities, because it states how much of each named material the price includes. Ask for it itemised, for your project. A firm offering a lump sum is asking you to compare a number with a number.
If you are managing your own finishing
Appointing one firm for the structure and another for the finishing is a normal arrangement, and it can work well. On paper it saves money. What it actually does is move a set of decisions out of a contract and into the space between two contracts, and that space has no owner.
Here is what lands in it.
Floor build-up
The structural slab is not the finished floor. Screed, waterproofing, adhesive and tile add up. If the structure was cast without an agreed build-up, door heights, thresholds, sill levels and the top step of the staircase all move. The staircase is the expensive one, because a riser that is out at the top is out for the whole flight.
Chases
Anything a finishing team does not find already cast into the wall gets cut into it. Cutting a chase through a column or a beam is not a finishing decision, but it will be made by a finishing team unless somebody has said no in advance and in writing.
MEP first fix
Conduits, sleeves and drainage routes are cast into the structure. Where the electrical and plumbing design is not settled before the slab, the finishing contractor inherits routes that no longer suit the layout, and the ceiling drops to hide them.
The waterproofing joint
A bathroom membrane laid by the structure contractor meets a screed laid by the finishing contractor at a joint neither firm owns. The leak appears in the ceiling below, more than a year later, by which time both have gone.
The level datum
One reference level is set at the start and everything on the project is measured from it. Two contractors working to two datums is how a house ends up with floors that do not meet.
Snagging
The structure contractor's defects period ends. The finishing contractor's begins. Anything that only becomes visible once the finish is on sits in the gap between them.
None of that is an argument against the arrangement. It is an argument for writing four things down before the frame goes up: the floor build-up allowance, the level datum, the status of the MEP design, and who owns the waterproofing joint.
We will settle those with you whether or not we are the firm doing the finishing. Handing over a structure that a competent finishing team can pick up cleanly is worth more to us than winning the argument about it eighteen months later. Where the finishing half is ours, that is interior design and fit-out.
Tell us the plot and the scope. We will tell you what your quotation should contain.
Discuss my grey structure scopeWhat you are handed when the structure is finished
A grey structure handover is a transfer of a building site from one team to another. What makes that go smoothly is not goodwill. It is paperwork.
The as-built record
Conduit and sleeve routes as they actually run, photographed before plaster closed them.
Test records
Concrete cube results and material test certificates, where the bill of quantities specified testing.
The setting-out and level datum record
The single reference every finishing trade will measure from.
The variation register
Every change, priced and approved when it happened, with the final contract value.
Approval status
The approved submission set the structure was built to, the edition it was approved under, and any revision issued during construction.
The snag list, closed out
Structural and enclosure defects corrected before the finishing contractor takes possession.
Hand that folder to a finishing contractor and their first week is spent measuring rather than guessing.
When grey structure alone is the wrong scope
If you cannot be on site, grey structure only is the wrong scope.
Grey structure works as a standalone contract when somebody is going to manage the seam described above. Usually that is the client. Sometimes it is an architect holding a supervision appointment, or an interior designer with real construction experience. It is rarely a relative doing a favour, and the failure mode there is well known to everyone in this market.
For an overseas client the arithmetic runs differently from the way it is usually presented. The saving on a grey structure contract is real and it is visible immediately. The cost of two firms with no owner for the joint between them is paid at handover, and you are eight thousand kilometres from the moment that created it. We take grey structure work from overseas clients. We also say, in the first conversation, that complete construction is the scope designed for that situation, and why. The way we work with clients building from abroad is set out under how overseas clients work with us.
One thing we do not do at any scope, including this one: labour-only contracts, or arrangements where the client buys the materials. We work material and labour, or complete construction, because specification quality is decided at procurement and we cannot stand behind what we did not buy.
It suits you if
- You live in the city and will be on site most weeks
- Your finishing contractor or interior designer is already appointed and willing to coordinate
- Your finishing brief is unsettled and you would rather start the structure than wait for it
Grey structure questions we are actually asked
Another firm quoted me a much lower rate. What should I do?
Take your drawings to their office and ask them to price that set, item by item, with the exclusions written down. A rate given before anybody has read your structural drawings has not been calculated, so it can move once they are on the table. We have sent clients to do exactly this rather than argue about it. Ask three things while you are there: the measured quantities for your project, the written exclusions list, and whether the septic tank, overhead tank, boundary wall, gate columns and parapet walls sit inside the number or outside it.
Are the septic tank, overhead water tank and boundary wall included?
Yes. The septic tank and soakage, the underground and overhead water tanks, the boundary wall, the gate columns and the parapet walls are all inside our grey structure scope, so you get one figure rather than a headline rate followed by a series of additions. The main gate itself, external development, the driveway and landscaping are quoted separately and named as such.
How do I compare two quotations when I am not technical?
Compare quantities rather than brands. Brand is the variable everybody discusses because it is the one clients have language for, but the difference between two numbers usually sits in how much material is included and in the workmanship, neither of which appears in a brand name. Ask each firm for an itemised bill of quantities for your project, the written exclusions list, and the payment stages tied to physical work. A firm that will not produce the first two has answered the question.
Do you build grey structures in DHA Lahore and DHA Islamabad?
Yes, and across LDA, CDA and RDA approved societies in Lahore, Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Send the society, the plot size and your drawings, and we will confirm the governing authority, what has to be certified while the frame is going up, and what a BOQ-based estimate would need from you.
Who supervises the site?
An architect. Construction management here is architect-led by design, because the person best placed to confirm a building is being built as drawn is somebody who produces drawings. It also means a drawing problem gets caught before it is cast rather than described as a construction problem afterwards.
Can I appoint you for the grey structure and somebody else for the finishing?
Yes. We ask for four things to be agreed before the frame goes up: the floor build-up allowance, the level datum, the status of the MEP design, and who owns the waterproofing joint at bathrooms and terraces. Those four are where two-contract projects go wrong, and settling them takes one meeting.
Is plaster inside your grey structure scope?
It is stated explicitly in the quotation either way, which is the part that matters. Plaster is the single most common scope dispute in this market precisely because it is treated as obvious by both sides and written down by neither. Check the same for the mumty and the roof treatment.
Does the structural design change between Lahore and Islamabad?
Yes, and the difference is in the detailing rather than the layout. The Building Code of Pakistan Seismic Provisions 2007 places Lahore in Zone 2A and Rawalpindi in Zone 2B, with Islamabad in the same band as Rawalpindi. A higher zone means tighter confinement at column ends, closer tie spacing and stricter rules on where laps may fall. A structural set drawn for one city is not portable to the other.
Do I need a soil investigation for a house?
In Islamabad and Rawalpindi we treat it as part of the structural design on 1 Kanal and larger, because the ground changes across short distances near the Margalla foothills and adjacent plots can want different foundations. In Lahore the alluvium is more uniform and it gets skipped more often, which is a different risk rather than no risk. A basement makes it necessary in either city.
Who certifies the structure to the authority, and when?
It depends on the authority, and this is the part most people discover too late. DHA Lahore wants a structural stability certificate at submission. The ICT regulations have the licensed architect and engineer formally undertake supervision on Form A-2 and certify the completed work on Form B-2. RDA stages its structure stability certificates, with one due at plinth level and another at 38 ft of building height. Confirm the current forms and thresholds for your plot before submission.
Will you build a grey structure if I buy the materials myself?
No. We work material and labour, or complete construction. Specification quality is decided at procurement, and we will not stand behind a structure built from steel, cement and aggregate somebody else selected. If a labour-only arrangement is what you want, a local contractor will serve you better and cost you less.
Do you build grey structures designed by another architect?
Yes, and we do not ask you to start the design again. We read the architectural, structural and MEP set against itself and against the approval, tell you in writing what is missing or inconsistent, and price the work as drawn. Your architect keeps the design relationship and design liability stays with the consultant who sealed the drawings. If you do not yet have a design, we provide architectural design.
What has to be decided before the roof slab is cast?
The electrical and plumbing routes, the floor build-up allowance, any openings needed for ducts or drainage, and whether a false ceiling is planned. All four are cast into the slab. Changing your mind afterwards means chasing, dropping the ceiling, or living with a pipe run that dictates the layout.
Does a basement change the approval position?
It can. Under the LDA regulations basement area counts inside the floor area ratio, so it consumes allowance you might have wanted above ground. Basement extent is also fixed permanently once the frame is cast, and excavation next to an occupied neighbouring house brings the stability of adjoining property into the regulations. Confirm the position for your authority and plot category before the structural design is finalised.
Can the finishing scope be added to the same contract later?
Yes. It is priced against the same drawings and the same bill of quantities, so the boundary between the two scopes stays written down rather than becoming a negotiation. Clients who are undecided often start this way. Where the finishing half is ours too, that is interior design and fit-out.
What do I receive when the grey structure is handed over?
The as-built record of conduit and sleeve routes with photographs taken before plaster, test records where the BOQ specified testing, the setting-out and level datum record, the variation register showing the final contract value, the approved submission set with the edition it was approved under, and a closed-out snag list.
How long does a grey structure take?
It depends on covered area, whether there is a basement, structural complexity and how quickly structural decisions are confirmed. We issue a programme with stage durations alongside the quotation, so the answer is specific to your building rather than a market average.
Where do you take grey structure work?
Lahore, Islamabad and Rawalpindi, where we can be on site through the working week. We do not take construction contracts in cities where we cannot supervise.
Before you sign anything
What clients regret is rarely the firm they chose. It is a scope that nobody wrote down item by item, discovered at the point where the frame is up and nothing is left to negotiate with.
Send us your drawings and whatever quotation you are holding. You will get that list back whether or not you appoint us.
Still budgeting? Start with the house construction cost guide. Already have a designer? See construction services.