For the Trade

Working From Our Drawings

Notes for architects, contractors and fabricators building to an Aura & Form package. Most of what follows exists because it went wrong once and we would rather it did not go wrong again on your project.

Substitutions

Every specified item carries a named fallback in the finish schedule. If neither is available, ask before ordering an equivalent — "equivalent" in a supplier catalogue usually means equivalent in price rather than in finish, and the difference shows on site in a way it does not on a datasheet.

  • Fallbacks are named in the schedule; use those first
  • Send a physical sample, not a photograph, for approval
  • Allow five working days for a substitution decision

Sample orders

We hold current samples for everything we specify regularly and will send a set to a trade address at no charge. Samples are labelled with the schedule reference rather than the product name, so they can be checked against the drawings without a translation step.

  • Sets are sent against a schedule reference, not a product list
  • Stone and timber samples show the batch, not a representative piece
  • Return is not required; they are yours to keep on file

Lead times

The schedule states weeks from order to delivery, not from enquiry. Anything quarried or hand-finished should be ordered at technical documentation rather than at first fix — by the time a joiner needs it on site, a twelve-week stone is already six weeks late.

  • Order long-lead items at documentation stage
  • Confirm the batch is still current at the point of ordering
  • Tell us when a date slips; the fallback may need re-checking

Who to contact

The studio lead named on the drawing package owns every decision on that project and is the fastest route to an answer. General enquiries reach a shared inbox that is read twice a day, which is fine for a sample request and slow for a question holding up a trade.

  • Named studio lead for anything on the critical path
  • Shared inbox for samples, schedules and documentation
  • Site queries in writing, so the answer joins the record