Drawing first, building second — our process on a 36 m² stand

The most expensive tool in our workshop is not the panel saw. It is the eraser. Everything that gets erased on paper costs a pencil line; everything that gets “erased” in timber costs a panel, a day, and somebody's temper. This piece walks through a recent 36 m² corporate stand, from first scribble to last screw, to show where the six weeks actually go — and why two-thirds of them happen before fabrication starts.

The client was a telecoms group taking an island stand at a Lagos trade fair: meeting space for eight, a demo bar, a coffee point, one suspended brand element. Signed brief to raise-day: 16 days on this one (rush window). The drawing phase was compressed, not skipped. Here is the uncompressed version, phase by phase.

Week one — the layout argument

Every stand begins as a disagreement between what the brief asks for and what the footprint allows. Eight seated guests, a demo bar with queue space, storage for 400 gift boxes and a coffee point do not fit on 36 m² — until you stack functions. We drew eleven layout studies; three survived to the client call. The winning move put storage inside the meeting-room wall (28 cm deep, invisible) and let the coffee point share the demo bar's counter run. None of this is buildable yet. It is geometry with opinions.

Weeks two and three — engineering the opinions

The studio then converts the chosen layout into an engineered pack: 18 sheets on this project. Plans, four elevations, sections through every junction that changes material, the electrical layout, and the calc note for the suspended ring — 90 kg, four attachment points, checked against the hall's rigging rules before we fell in love with it. The cutting list ran to 214 parts. Two full days went on one detail: the junction where the meeting-room glazing meets the timber portal. On paper it is a 40 mm question; built wrong, it is the first thing every visitor's eye finds.

Weeks four and five — fabrication, finally

With a full pack, fabrication is fast and quiet. The 214 parts were cut in three days on two benches. Assembly happened in the workshop first — we dry-fit every stand completely, photograph it, then break it into transport modules. The dry fit caught two errors: a skirting profile drawn 6 mm proud, and a door swing that clipped the demo bar. Both were paper fixes at this stage. On site they would have been Tuesday-night fixes, which is to say: visible ones.

Finish took the second week — filler, sanding, three coats on the visible faces, vinyl graphics applied flat before the walls went vertical. Flat application is half the reason our graphics survive; the other half is covered in how eight cities keep one finish.

Week six — raise-day, twice

The Lagos bench raised the stand in 30 hours across two days: structure and heavy joinery on day one, glazing, graphics, lighting and furniture on day two. The suspended ring went up under the hall rigger's supervision at 07:40 on day two — the calc note, countersigned, was on the site lead's clipboard when the venue inspector asked, which is exactly the moment you want that piece of paper to exist. Three signatures closed the raise-day sheet: site lead, studio, client.

Drawing first, building second is not a slogan; it is a cost decision. On this project the studio phase was 22 % of the invoice and it is where every later saving was manufactured. If your next stand deserves six weeks, file a brief — and if it only has three, read the piece on our 48-hour brief template first.