What is the difference between a fit-out and a refurbishment?

The difference is where the job starts. A fit-out takes a space and fills it with what it needs to work, while a refurbishment takes a space that already works and renews it.

In practice the line blurs, because plenty of school and council projects do both at once. Monument treats them as one capability, covering libraries, canteens, council interiors, school admin buildings and heritage restorations.

A fit-out

A fit-out is about the inside of a room and what makes it useful. A school library fit-out can include new wall, ceiling and floor linings, audio-visual equipment for multi-zone use, communications and security upgrades, and custom joinery and furniture made and installed for the room.

Monument delivered a complete library fit-out at Cambridge Park High School, with the school open around it. What a library fit-out covers is set out in how a school library is fitted out.

A refurbishment

A refurbishment keeps a room's purpose and renews the room. In a school canteen, that means bringing the space up to current facilities guidelines and making the most of the area staff have to prepare and serve food.

Monument has refurbished canteens at Busby West, Cabramatta and Glossodia Public Schools. For the City of Canterbury Bankstown, it refurbished three community centres, including the Revesby Community Centre and the Bankstown Senior Citizens Centre. The canteen work is covered in how school canteens are refurbished.

Projects that are both

A library fit-out can include refurbishing the reception and the offices behind it, so one contract carries both kinds of work. Cranebrook High School went further. After a fire, the library was made safe and remediated, then given a complete upgrade with new ceiling and floor linings, interactive audio-visual works, lighting, security and furniture.

The strip-out

A refurbishment nearly always starts by taking out what is already there. That step shows the real condition of the walls, floors and services, and in an older building it often differs from the drawings.

The approach in a building that stays in use is set out in demolition and strip-out in occupied buildings.

Heritage buildings

Heritage restorations sit in the same category, with one extra rule: the original fabric is kept and protected. At Concord Public School, Monument upgraded the toilet amenities to new facilities standards on a heritage building while respecting its heritage fabric.

The brief

The label shapes the tender. A fit-out brief describes what the finished room has to do, while a refurbishment brief also has to say what stays, what goes and what condition the existing building is in. What a client should provide at tender lists what helps a contractor price it accurately.

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