A design retainer for four openings in 2027
Prepared by
Fabrègue Aillaud, Marseille
Prepared for
Palanque
Term
1 March to 31 December 2027
Monthly fee
From €9,120 HT
What you asked for
Palanque opens four sites between July and December 2027: Lyon, Toulouse, Nice and Bordeaux. You asked for one design partner for all four, on one fee.
Your Series B closed in January 2027 and the four leases are signed. Your sites in Marseille, Aix and Montpellier were each designed under a separate contract, by three studios. Members notice. The phone booths differ, the desk depths differ, the chairs differ.
What is at stake is the calendar. Each lease carries rent from the handover date, so a week lost to a fee negotiation is a week of rent on an empty floor.
If we have any of this wrong, tell us before you read the rest.
Why a retainer, not four projects
A project per site means four scopes, four fee letters and four kick-offs. The work repeats. The contract should not. On our last multi-site programme each fee letter took three weeks. A retainer keeps one team on every site and moves its days to the next opening.
0
Openings, July to December
0 m²
Floor area to fit
0 weeks
Minimum furniture lead time
0 weeks
Saved on each site
What each month includes
Five kinds of work, drawn from one monthly allowance of studio days. The mix changes with the calendar. The team does not.
Site surveys
A measured survey of each shell within ten working days of handover: 3D scan, services positions, daylight readings, acoustic baseline. The model is shared the same week. Layouts start from what is there, not from the landlord's drawings.
Layouts
Desk plans, meeting rooms and phone booths tested against your ratios: 6.9 m² per desk, one booth per 14 members. You walk each floor in VR before anything is ordered. Two rounds of changes per site are included.
FF&E packs
One furniture, fixtures and equipment schedule per site, built from the Palanque kit of 62 standard items, with local substitutions flagged. Each line carries supplier, lead time and price. You approve in the live tracker, line by line.
Supplier management
We place and chase every order on your account. Eleven suppliers, one tracker, one status update a week. Trade discounts pass to you in full. We take no margin on goods.
Opening-week snagging
Bastien Aillaud is on site for the five days before each opening. Every defect is logged with a photo, an owner and a date. The list is closed, or priced, before members arrive on the Monday.
How a month runs
The same five fixed points every month. Maëlys Fabrègue holds the account and chairs each one.
Planning call, first Tuesday
Forty-five minutes with Hortense Vidalenc's team. We agree where the month's days go, site by site. If a new lease lands mid-month, something moves, and we say what.
Work in the open
Drawings, schedules and orders sit in one shared tracker. You see the status without asking. Requests come through one inbox, not three phones.
Site day, every second Thursday
One of us is on a live site every second Thursday. Photos and notes are in the tracker by the evening.
Your answer in three days
Anything we send for approval needs an answer within three working days. A later answer moves the order date, and the lead time does the rest.
Month close, last Friday
One page: days used against the allowance, orders placed, what rolls forward. No slide deck.
The openings calendar
Four sites, two stages each. The gap between them is supplier lead time: eleven weeks minimum from order to install. It is the one part of the calendar nobody can compress. No more than two sites are live at once.
Lyon: design and orders
Part-Dieu, 2,350 m². Survey, layouts, FF&E pack. Orders placed by 9 April.
Toulouse: design and orders
Compans, 1,800 m². Orders placed by 4 June.
Nice: design and orders
Arénas, 1,500 m². Orders placed by 9 July.
Lyon: install and opening
Snagging 5 to 9 July. Opens Monday 12 July.
Bordeaux: design and orders
Euratlantique, 2,900 m². Orders placed by 10 September.
Toulouse: install and opening
Snagging 30 August to 3 September. Opens Monday 6 September.
Nice: install and opening
Snagging 4 to 8 October. Opens Monday 11 October.
Bordeaux: install and opening
Snagging 6 to 10 December. Opens Monday 13 December.
Tessel Cliniques, six day clinics
Six clinics fitted out in fourteen months on one retainer, from a waiting-room kit of 38 items. By the fifth site the FF&E pack took four days, not fifteen.
Calade Hôtels, three lobbies
Three lobby and lounge fit-outs in Marseille, Nîmes and Sète. Shared joinery details cut the workshop cost per lobby by 17% between the first and the third.
Résidences Aubier, four study lounges
Four student residences, four study lounges, one supplier list. Every lounge opened on the first day of term. Each snag list closed within five days of opening.
Clients on their third, fourth and sixth site
The monthly fee
All figures in euros, HT. TVA at 20% is added on invoice. Pick one tier. Your calendar never has more than two sites live at once, so we recommend the middle one. Furniture and fittings are bought on your account and are not in these figures.
Monthly tiers
Invoiced on the first working day of each month. You can move tier at each quarterly review.
One site live
12 studio days a month at 760. One site in design or install at a time.
One site live
12 studio days a month at 760. One site in design or install at a time.
Design and layout days
8 days: surveys, layouts, 3D and VR.
FF&E and supplier days
4 days: schedules, orders, site.
Two sites live
22 studio days a month at 735. Two sites in design or install at once. Recommended.
Two sites live
22 studio days a month at 735. Two sites in design or install at once. Recommended.
Design and layout days
15 days: surveys, layouts, 3D and VR.
FF&E and supplier days
7 days: schedules, orders, site.
Three sites live
32 studio days a month at 710. For a fifth lease or a compressed calendar.
Three sites live
32 studio days a month at 710. For a fifth lease or a compressed calendar.
Design and layout days
21 days: surveys, layouts, 3D and VR.
FF&E and supplier days
11 days: schedules, orders, site.
Setup and add-ons
Setup is invoiced once, on signature. Add-ons are priced per use: tick what you want and the total updates.
Setup, one-off
13.5 days at 760, in March 2027.
Setup, one-off
13.5 days at 760, in March 2027.
Standards audit of your four open sites
4.5 days. What to keep, what to stop repeating.
The Palanque kit
7 days. 62 standard furniture and finish items, priced, with lead times.
Tracker and supplier onboarding
2 days. Eleven supplier accounts opened in your name.
Optional add-ons
Each is a one-off, per site or per day.
Optional add-ons
Each is a one-off, per site or per day.
Acoustic survey and report, per site
3 days, with measured reverberation times.
Opening-week photography, per site
One day on site, 25 edited images.
VR walkthrough for your sales team, per site
2 days. For pre-letting before the opening.
Extra studio day
Agreed in writing before it is used.
Notice, review and the small print
Written down now, so nothing needs arguing in October.
Term and notice
The retainer runs from Monday 1 March to Friday 31 December 2027. The first three months are fixed. From 1 June either side can end it with 60 days' written notice. Work in progress is handed over with drawings, schedules and open orders. Nothing is held back.
Quarterly review
We review on Tuesday 1 June, Wednesday 1 September and Wednesday 1 December. Each review looks at days used, the calendar ahead and the tier. You can move up or down one tier from the following month. A new lease between reviews triggers a review within ten working days.
Unused and extra days
Up to three unused days roll into the next month, once. Beyond that they lapse. Days over the allowance are agreed in writing first and charged at 760 euros HT. We tell you when a month reaches 80% of its allowance.
What the fee does not cover
Furniture, fittings and equipment. Building works, mechanical and electrical design, fire strategy and landlord approvals. Travel outside the four cities. FF&E budgets run from 410 to 560 euros per m², with a 10% contingency, and are approved per site.
Orders, deposits and changes
Hortense Vidalenc signs off every order in the tracker. Suppliers invoice Palanque directly, and most ask for a 40% deposit. If a line changes after ordering, the deposit is usually lost and the lead time restarts. We give you both numbers before you decide.
Lead times and late approvals
The calendar assumes eleven weeks from order to install, and site access from each handover date in your leases. A late approval moves the install date by the same number of days. An opening date cannot be held by working faster on site.
Photography
We keep the right to photograph finished sites and to publish the images after each opening, once you have approved the selection.
Sign to start on 1 March
Signing commits Palanque to a design retainer from 1 March to 31 December 2027, on the tier selected above, and to the one-off setup fee of 10,260 euros HT. The recommended tier is 16,170 euros HT a month. The first three months are fixed, then 60 days' notice applies. We invoice setup on signature. This offer holds until Friday 12 February 2027.
Prepared by
Maëlys Fabrègue Founding partner, Fabrègue Aillaud
38 rue Paradis 13001 Marseille maelys@fabregue-aillaud.fr
For signature by
Hortense Vidalenc Director of Development, Palanque
12 quai de Rive Neuve 13007 Marseille
If you would rather talk it through first, we have held Thursday 4 February 2027, at your office or ours.
Sign to start on 1 March 2027
By signing, Palanque commits to a design retainer from 1 March to 31 December 2027 on the tier selected above, plus the one-off setup fee of 10,260 euros HT. The first three months are fixed, then 60 days' notice applies.