Arkam & Partners

House 406, Street 64, I-8/3, Islamabad

+92 345 543 0179

+92 51 49 000 91

We design only for people with extra ordinary taste and are willing to stand apart from the crowd. We don’t just design a building but craft it and create master pieces, we sculpt our designs and mould them to create great work of art with the difference that not only you can admire it from the outside by looking at it but you can actually live in, so we create livable master pieces.

We firmly believe that house is a mirror of your personality so each detail should be worked out with absolute attention and devotion therefore we thrive to produce excellent designs in terms of aesthetics as well as function. The house where we spend most of our lives should depict our feelings, emotions and sentiments and is equally our partner with whom we share feelings of happiness and sorrow. We thrive to study deep inside our clients and dig the inner self out so that the results of our inside can be depicted into real forms and spaces in order to get the ultimate living experience which soothes our inner self thus providing maximum comfort living in our homes.

Each space inside the house should must be carefully visualized and designed with absolute attention to detail, like the stairs should not be just a medium to go to another floor but a flight towards the sky; Your lawn not just a portion of the site to be accessed once during the evening but a place to be enjoyed 24 hours even from the inside of house; the house merged into the landscape of the outside world; your living room to be like sitting in the middle of a garden; your entrance to the house not just a door but an entrance to your empire which is ruled only by you as you have spent the whole day into the busy and noisy streets of the city, interacting with all kinds of people, looking at the manmade buildings all around, so it is time to enter you personal cocoon which not only protects you from the outside world but nourishes you as well; the windows should not be created to look at the neighbor’s house but properly designed and created to give you soul nurturing view of nature; all the rooms not just placed around a living room  but all the spaces to be designed to create an ultimate experience while moving inside the house by creating views, vistas and open air magnets so that a person maneuvers with a whole new experience at every turn inside the house and explores the house in bits and pieces with each part of the house presenting different feel and experience, a combination of both curiosity and excitement;  a house truly to be transformation of your inner self. All these things should be carefully planned by the architect.

Our design recipe is simple, we try to merge the inside with outside in harmony with landscaping which act as the binding force between the two and once these ingredients are fully cooked, the resultant is a product with a unique and extra ordinary taste.

2- PORTFOLIO

a- House in Soan Garden
(include pictures from the main photo folder for this project)
Location: Soan Garden, Islamabad
Plot size: 35’x65’

I have tried to express this theory into this house project that the buildings can’t be static by establishing their limits, edges and boundaries instead they go through a continuous process of growth before taking their final shape. The different colored bars and unequal lines are showing the effect of extremely high speed. These lines represent the colors of life that are responsible for the formation of any object, in this case are forming a house building. They are coming from an unknown source or infinity travelling at extremely high speed, forming the building and kept on moving to an unknown destination which is shown in the boundary wall. This phenomenon represents that the building formation is still in progress and who knows when we will achieve that ideal state when the building will be completed. These colored rays of life just and only triggered the formation process and this process is still progressing and no one knows what the result will be like because we as humans still have to discover that ultimate part of knowledge which will give this building its final form. This is the reason the building has different angles and a mix of straight and tapered edges because as mentioned earlier the formation process has been triggered and the building is in the growth phase like any object in the nature, for example a plant; it goes through different twists and turns and takes different forms before taking the final shape of a tree, same is the case with a baby when it goes through different phases of formation before birth, same is the process here, these uneven and unparallel lines are showing those twists and turns the building is taking before it will take its final shape. In the case of plant as Allah is the creator and knows the final shape so the plant finally achieves that in a matter of few months or years but we as humans still have to uncover that knowledge before we can understand and are able to put a full stop of completion.

Different blocks and masses are showing this growth, like when a building is made with Lego, the child knows the final shape as seen in the booklet and during the construction, the pieces are fitted into their specific place. Same is the case shown here, different blocks are being fitted into their original place but we don’t have the booklet like in case of Lego and we still have to discover that knowledge before these building blocks can get to their right place.
I strongly believe that every part of the building should have its own individual identity. This phenomena is again in line with nature, every tree, every flower everything have their own unique identity and all the parts of the objects around us form a whole yet securing their individuality, for example let’s look at the human body, different parts of the body like hands, arms, legs, head etc. all form a human body together but if analyzed each part is maintaining its individual identity at the same time and no part is intruding or disturbing the freedom and identity of the other part. Let’s take another example of a tree, all the parts of the tree, the stem, branches, leaves and fruits – all of them together form a tree but still have their individual identity and if the leaves or fruits are plucked from the tree, that individual leaf comes out as a whole object and none of its remaining is left on the tree or if the flower is plucked, it comes out as a whole object with its complete identity and no part of the plant is intruding into another part, like we never saw a branch passing through the flower or fruit passing through the branch, it means each object is not allowed to enter the territory of the other object, they may live together but are not allowed to snatch the freedom of their neighboring objects. Same is the case in architecture, each element of the building deserves to have its own identity and freedom, for example the window should not be allowed to enter the territory of the wall as the wall has its own identity and the windows pasted in the middle of the walls takes that pride and sense of ownership from the wall which is the right it deserves. Same should be the case with other elements, the doors should not intrude into the walls rather should be designed in such a way that although the doors, windows and walls should be connected to one another and should fulfill the purpose without sacrificing their own individual identity.
This is what I have tried to achieve here and there are no windows pasted on the walls or doors pasted in the middle of the walls. In this building every element exists but has its own identity and does not intrude into their neighbor’s space. The big glass window at the corner of the first floor has its own individuality and if removed from the building, will not affect the other parts as its not intruding into the territory of any other walls, same is the case with the curtain wall with dark grey glass, this whole block can be taken out and will not damage the look of the rest of the building because its not going into the territory of other member of the form and has its own individuality, similarly all the masses and elements can be taken out and placed back like in a piece of puzzle and will not destabilize the form. The windows, doors, and walls everything co-exists together in harmony and all these parts are forming a whole like in human body and maintain their individuality at the same time. If a window is taken out from the middle of a wall it leaves a blank hole behind, which shows that the window invaded the individuality of that wall but if a flower is plucked from a plant the plant may not look good but the flower didn’t eat up any part of the branch like the window had eaten up the space to create that hole into the wall, this is the call of nature and should be tried to explore and applied. The architecture we see around us is not responding to this call of nature and our institutes should make reforms so that we can at least start thinking on these lines that there is still an X-factor which is missing from our designs.  The terrace does exist but the railing is not seen as a separate entity and is not intruding into the territory of the walls. All the elements and masses of the building are interlocking and overlapping due to the growth process mentioned earlier, as a result all the elements are coming out and emerging from one another and are showing a movement in their formation and this is the reason the building is not silent and definitive and there is no full stop. The building is being formed and not complete and may take a lifetime before it reaches its glory.
Regarding the finishes and colors, That final shape of any living specie is again not final but the object is still growing, we humans see different phases of life but there is not a single moment which we can say is the final shape of our formation, like from birth to youth and youth to old age and after that we fade out from the face of the planet, it means the formation process is never ending and continues all the time. Same is the case shown in the building, again it is in accordance with nature, the life is not smooth, there are moments of happiness and bumps of hardships as well, so how can our buildings which are designed for humans, why shouldn’t they respond to this aspect of life. How can the buildings have same colors and finishes showing a smoothness and giving the impression of”everything is ok”. Everything is not ok in our lives. The white color shows the birth of the building. An overall grey neutral color is showing that most part of our lives is on average neutral and is an even road and all of us are running into the same daily cycle, from morning to evening and back to next morning, all of us are rushing to catch up with the running time and dark and light grey texture tones shows this fluctuation we face in our lives on daily basis but as a whole is constant so major portion of the building is grey texture paint. Dark grey glass shows those bumps of hardships we face in our lives and the bright orangish portion depicts those delightful moments we enjoy. The white lines along the rays of colors shows the traces of the rays of life as they hit with enormous amount of speed and released huge amount of energy which is required for the formation of every living thing and in our case was required to form this building and those life forming color bars hit the building with such a speed and moved ahead to another unpredictable destination that these color rays left their traces behind and these white lines shows those traces and shows the route of the passing rays only. As the white color shows the birth signs when the building was newly born like a baby with a life without worries and with the passage of time the building started growing older shown in the grey tones but the colored rays of life had hit with such a force that huge amount of energy was released and that is due to this tremendous amount of energy that the white traces are still white and it will take some more time before they will turn dark like rest of the building. The small tearing up patches shows the aging factor and as the growth process is s still continuing the building is getting older and older and showing signs of old age like a human body, in a old age some parts like hands or legs may not look that old but the wrinkles around eyes shows the signs of aging, these patches are showing those wrinkles of old age.
Overall the building is truly a remarkable piece of art and it took a lot of effort and energy to bring the concept into reality.
b- House in G-13
Location: G-13, Islamabad
Plot Size: 30’x60’
In this project again we maintained our design philosophy and successfully transformed our concepts into another masterpiece. Planning wise extremely efficient plan accommodating 2 beds with attached baths on each floor. The zigzag form of the building shows the continuous process of growth of the building and one can’t predict when it is going to take its final shape and in which direction will it take its next turn and what it will be like in the future? No one knows.
The windows are not created by making holes in the walls but are separate entities with their own individuality and same is true for walls. Both the windows and walls co-exist with each other yet maintaining their separate identity and complementing each other at the same time and if the windows  or walls are removed from the building, the overall form doesn’t get destroyed as in the case of ordinary buildings

c- House in Sohan Islamabad

Location: Sohan, Islamabad
Plot size: complex
This was a very challenging and exciting project due to the complex geometry of the site. Achieving an ideal and functional plan fulfilling all the requirements was the major task because the site is getting narrow as we move towards the back and overall is more triangular in shape but we still managed to provide the best solution to our client. Once you enter the house there is a corridor leading towards the lounge and the corridor is glazed throughout and is open to nice views so the person experiences a feeling of openness with changing views as we move along the curved wall. Each room has perfect geometry and placed in the right zone of the house, for instance the bedrooms are at the far corner as they require privacy and should be away from the main traffic flow (i.e. near the main entrance). The drawing, dining and kitchen are forming perfect functional relationship. All the corridors are lit up with natural light so there are no tunnel effects which we always try to kill. Overall it is a good design. The project is still in the concept stage and the exterior form is yet to be finalized.

d- Matser plan of Housing Society in Sheikhupura

In addition to custom home design services, we provide one of country’s best master planning solutions to developers and corporate clients. As Mr. Arqam has extensive experience in master planning and acted as the lead master planner for Emaar Paksitan’s canyon views project in Islamabad and was involved in master planning of Mirador villages and Alma townhome villages and Mr. Arqam  is very well aware of Emaar’s (one of world’s biggest developer) guidelines and concept for master planning residential communities.
If we talk about this masterplan, the concept was developed in consultation with American Architect Mazen N Issa. The initial problem which restricted our design form was the electric transmission lines which run through the site and we have to provide at least 7 meter clearance on both sides of the electric lines so this 14 meter space can’t be used for dwellings and for human habitats and that meant wastage of a lot of land which means a substantial loss to the developer. We came up with an ideal solution to this problem and proposed the main boulevard along the electric lines thus utilizing that 14 metres space of land. So initially our main boulevard was frozen. The commercial district and amenities are placed in the centre for easy approach from all houses inside the development. The main difference you will notice in the master plan which distinguishes this planning from the rest of developments is that no house opens up directly on the main boulevard which in other developments becomes a reason for traffic congestion and slow movement of traffic but here the cars can move freely on the main boulevard without any fear of seeing a backing up car from the houses on the main road. Second important thing is that all village entrances are provided on the main ring road around the commercial district and there is one entrance for each village, this enables to control security and traffic flow and increases the overall efficiency of the design. There is not a single house which does not belong to any village and the whole residential development is divided into 5 villages. Another main design concept incorporated is that you see the view of park in front once you enter into any village. This is provided to give a feeling of openness and enhances importance of the community gathering space once the visitor enters the village. Inside planning is again extremely efficient and curving roads provide a changing view at every segment of the road while driving and the visitor experiences curiosity and enjoyment at the same time while moving inside. Another important aspect is that unlike other developments which are mostly designed in grid iron pattern with cross roads at every junction which is the main reason for inefficient flow of traffic is eliminated in our design and there are no cross roads provided thus eliminating the risk of traffic hazards.
Overall we find the design very interesting and shall provide the residents the true essence of living in a residential community.

3- Philosophy & Approach

 

Beauty, grace and most importantly essence are three main attributes of each design and the resultant product nourishes the people physically, mentally and emotionally to form a masterpiece which also strengthens the connection between the people who live in.
Our designs are not only architectural marvels but a pride for structural engineers who try to achieve the forms with great care and effort.
We try to create artistic forms which are inviting and not static. The building form, materials used, site context, topography, solar orientation, climate and views are all taken into consideration to create dynamic architecture. The rooms are located and designed in such a way in order to enhance an experience within the building that incite curiosity and sense of pleasure and the building unfolds itself during this experience rather than like an open play ground where the audience can see everything at once.
We prefer to express the uniqueness of each site, its regional context and client objectives in the design. These expressions tend toward abstraction, allowing individual interpretation and meaning. Collectively our buildings contain a narrative that expresses optimism about our culture, technology and arts, evidencing their place in the 21st century.

Our designs are not merely off the shelf; rather they are result of deep study and our design often leads toward form that are complex and unique while maintaining low costs and efficient construction solutions. The resultant is a building that responds to our clients needs and is a transformation of our client’s inner self into a physical object.
Our philosophy and approach can be understood through the writings of Jacui Neurauter:
“It's often said that the world is a stage on which we are all actors playing out our life roles and dramas. Imagine for a moment your house as a stage with a set filled with props that reflect your life. What if you were able to view your life drama--objectively, as an audience does--by means of this set? You can. Just as we learn and grow through our relationships with others, our home reflects many things that can teach us about our past and present and how we are moving forward or being blocked on our life journey.

Winston Churchill once said, "We shape our dwellings, and later our dwellings shape us." The spaces in which we live reflect our outer and inner self and our sense of feeling supported or stagnant on our journey. Clare Cooper Marcus, an internationally recognized architect and professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of House as a Mirror of Self: Exploring the Deeper Meaning of Home (1995), a work based on 25 years of her research and influenced by the writings of psychologist Carl Jung. It provides many intriguing insights into the ways in which our dwellings reflect our evolving self-image.

Whether we live in an apartment, multiple- or single-family residence, we chose our space for a reason. At the primary level, we need a nurturing space from which we can go out into the world to make a living and find fulfillment. Our homes reflect so much about us. The walls and furnishings reveal who we are, where we came from and where we are going. When the walls are bare and boxes have never been unpacked, this speaks volumes about our self.

What is home?
Not everyone feels "at home" in his or her housing. There are people affluent enough to own multiple homes, yet they don't feel at home in any of them. Some people feel more at home in nature than in their dwelling. In a relationship, one partner may feel more "at home" than the other. Beyond shelter, Webster’s Dictionary says a home can represent a "final destination," "place of origin" or "where you belong." The right environment protects, restores and provides opportunities to express who we are now and who we are meant to be. When we personalize our space, we construct aspects of our identity through our furnishings and accessories.

Sense of self
According to Carl Jung, in the first half of our life we focus on developing a strong personality to meet the world. Our home and its contents are potent statements of this focus.

Most often, our sense of home comes from our childhood home--a sense that we carry into our adult model. Memories of the harmony or disharmony we experienced in childhood influence how we make life choices and are mirrored by the furnishings in our current home. A divorced friend of mine with a very active lifestyle is rarely home. His childhood home was a place to "get out of." While he continues the pattern he created long ago, he now views his home as a nurturing haven filled with items reflecting healthy memories--an afghan his grandmother knitted, a stereo component system similar to his father's and books representing his growth and future dreams.

The first signs of independence that children seek are hiding places: a den, fort or tree house. Adolescents express themselves by plastering their bedroom walls with posters and photos or by leaving clothes strewn about. At college or in our first home away from home, we express our distinct personalities. We may unconsciously express unresolved conflict with parents. Instead of traditional, we might choose avant-garde furnishings. Or we may unconsciously yearn to express memories of our childhood home as anchors to our roots through plants, artwork, fabrics or furniture and its arrangement. While most people shape and decorate to express deeper values, some people channel this expression into their clothes or creative work instead.

Lost home
Losing a home as a result of divorce, death of a partner, unemployment, natural disaster or old age can have a devastating effect on our self-image. The house that had served as an anchor can give way to feelings of clinging, insecurity, anger or resentment. When elderly people need to leave their homes, it is so important to bring furnishings and momentos to their new environment, so they remain connected to their former home and true self.

For women (more than men), environment means life. If the spouse is gone, she may find herself surrounded by bittersweet memories. Psychologists recommend holding off on making major changes after the loss of a life partner to allow time for inner healing and for a new self-image to emerge. Several years ago, a widowed friend of mine made a major move immediately after her loss and has regretted doing so ever since.

A few months ago another widowed friend lost her older sister, who had lived with her all her life. Totally alone for the first time, she recently found herself drawn to purchasing three new antique pieces of furniture, which she sees as symbolically reflecting an emerging facet of her new self-image.

Order/chaos
For many people, the home is the only place in their lives where they feel they have control. When two people come together to share a home, some partners are content to appropriate the decorating to the other. Horns can really lock, however, when each has different tastes along with a strong need for control. Here it's important to explore the differences and the meaning behind them in order to come to a compromise and maintain harmony in the relationship.
Clutter is an issue that has plagued many of my feng shui clients and those for whom I am a life coach. It's like a human body with excess fat. Hiring a home organizer may only serve as a Band-aid approach to a deeper issue. It could be an expression of a family pattern or confusion about one's life. It could be unresolved anger towards a parent who was overly tidy. On the other hand, the overly tidy person may be revolting against the parent who is swimming in clutter. If chaos is reflected in your environment, ask yourself what it might be mirroring in yourself. Is part of your life on hold or at a standstill? What feelings and emotions do you experience when you view the clutter? Sometimes we hold onto things because we're unsure of who we are. How does the clutter reflect your current self-image?

Journey to wholeness
Jung believed that the second half of our lives is about moving toward wholeness. Whether you have achieved the success you desired is unimportant. What is important is whether you are being true to yourself now with all the resources you have to work with. I challenge you to come to a place where you have no regrets. That’s difficult since we all have regrets. However, when we make peace with ourselves and forgive others and ourselves, we can move forward down that path towards wholeness.

Look around your home today. What feelings does it express--comfort or unresolved rebellion? The past or who you are today? Take an inventory of the "props" in your home as well. Reflect upon, journal about or draw the symbolic meaning they hold for you. Do they connect you with the deeper, more authentic part of yourself--beyond your ego, beyond who you think you are? Do they symbolize a family member, intimate friend or partner, place, experience or some aspect of your roots? What things reflect who you are in current space and time? This is the power of homemaking, or “soulmaking”--the power to connect with your deep spirit or soul.
When you consciously appreciate what you have and why, you can begin to make changes toward the elusive goal of “wholeness.” I trust you'll create the space and time to ponder these ideas. My blessings.”

________________________________________Jacqui Neurauter, of Harmonious Pathways, is a Personal/Professional Coach
and Feng Shui Specialist.

4- Services

• Residential Architecture
• House remodeling & renovation
• Residential Interior
• Master planning

We provide following services for each design project and client can take all or any one of the following services depending upon their need.

• Performing feasibility study
• Establishing the theme and design concept
• Submission & Approval from the relevant authorities
• Detail Design
• Preparation of BOQs and tender documents
• Contractor Selection through competitive bidding
• Project management & supervision with timelines for schedule of works
• Processing interim and final payment to contractor

5- Why us?
Why Hire Arkam + Partners? 

• In order to get a designer house specifically designed for you only with a highly unique design
• You need an expert to explore yourself in order to translate your personality and ideas into reality, to create a mirror of your image, to make your home stand apart from the crowd. All of our homes are singular expressions of our clients. Like true works of art, they are never alike.
• Our modern house designs are able to be published in architectural magazines with unmatched designs.
• By creating spaces with sense of feeling, a space to be a part of your inside is not something you will find elsewhere. We have devoted ourselves to and specialized in the field of house designs only in order to save our expertise and energy to houses only and not becoming money making machines jumping onto design of all building types, like commercial, retail industrial buildings etc. By doing this we keep our imaginations always fresh and ideas flowing without being diluted due to involvement in other building types.

6- About us

S.Arqam Ali Sabzwari
Principal Architect

Mr.Arqam has been a marvel to the firms he worked for both in Pakistan and abroad. With almost ten years of exposure to his dreamed profession: architecture, he has acquired a unique style and sense of creativity. Having worked for Emaar Pakistan and multi-sectoral jobs inclusive of versatilities in project management, master planning, custom home designs and interior. Coupled with his work experience in europe with leading architectural firms has given him exposure and invaluable knowledge of ways through which a client's dream and desire can be brought to ultimate reality. He is also teaching in the architecture department as visiting Assistant Professor at the Abbotabad campus of University of Engineering & Technology, Peshawar.

”I strongly believe that we as humans can never create a definite or ideal object, in other words we lack the ultimate knowledge which is required to produce the ultimate product and this knowledge is yet to be explored and mastered. Same is the case in architecture, the buildings we design are not perfect and although the building might look complete, the X factor, the final piece of the puzzle is still missing and to discover that missing link more working is required which may take even years to achieve and master and that final piece will again not give it the ultimate shape but can be the moment of glory for that building like the youth phase is the best time in our lives and is still not the final shape of us and we continue to grow older and older, so this growth process continues all the time and we as architects can’t put a full stop by defining all the edges and boundaries of the building thus forcing the building to be trapped in a user defined envelope and saying “the building has finally taken its shape and is full grown”, it can’t be possible according to laws of nature and this growth process is never ending. It should rather be a process of natural growth and like in other elements of nature the growth is never uniform or straight forward but it reaches its final shape after going through and taking different twists and turns, taking different shapes and forms and after releasing huge amount of energy.
I firmly believe that every part of the building should have its own individual identity. This phenomena is again in line with nature, every tree, every flower everything have their own unique identity and all the parts of the objects around us form a whole yet securing their individuality, for example let’s look at the human body, the different parts of the body like hands, arms, legs, head etc. all form a human body together but if analyzed separately each part is maintaining its individual identity at the same time and no part is intruding or disturbing the freedom and identity of the other part. Let’s take another example of a tree, all the parts of the tree, the stem, branches, leaves and fruits – all of them together form a tree but still have their individual identity and if the leaves are removed or the fruits are plucked from the tree, that individual leaf comes out as a whole object and none of its remaining is left on the tree or if the flower is plucked it comes out as a whole object with its complete identity and no part of the plant is intruding into another part, like we never saw a branch passing through the flower or fruit passing through the branch, it means each object is not allowed to enter the territory of the other object, they may live together but are not allowed to snatch the freedom of each other. Same is the case in architecture, each element of the building deserves to have its own identity and freedom, for example the window should not be allowed to enter the territory of the wall, as the wall has its own identity and the windows pasted in the middle of the walls takes that pride and sense of ownership from the wall which is the right it deserves. Same should be the case with other elements, the doors should not intrude into the walls rather should be designed in such a way that although the doors, windows and walls should be connected to one another and should fulfill the purpose without sacrificing their own individual identity.
The windows, doors, and walls everything should co-exists together in harmony and all these parts should form a whole like in a human body and maintain their individuality at the same time. If a window is taken out from the middle of a wall it leaves a blank hole behind which shows that the window invaded the individuality of that wall but if a flower is plucked from a plant the plant may not look good but the flower didn’t eat up any part of the branch like the window had eaten up the space to create that hole into the wall, this is the call of nature and should be explored and applied. The architecture we see around us is not responding to this call of nature and our institutes should make reforms so that we can at least start thinking on these lines that there is still an X-factor which is missing from our designs. 
Regarding the selection of finishes and colors of any building, they should depict the pattern of a human life. We humans see different phases of life but there is not a single moment which we can say is the final shape of our formation, like from birth to youth and youth to old age and later we fade out from the face of the planet, it means the formation process is never ending and continues all the time. Same should be the case for every building, again it is in accordance with nature that life is not smooth, there are moments of happiness and bumps of hardships as well, so how can our buildings which are designed for humans, why shouldn’t they respond to this aspect of life. How can the buildings have same fine colors and smooth finishes showing a smoothness and giving the impression of ” everything is ok”. Everything is not ok in our lives. This statement should be part of our buildings as these buildings are our companion where we live most of our life and share each moment so the building should also respond to and compliment this aspect of its habitants and should not act as an artificial décor”.

S. Aslam Ali Sabzwari
Managing Director
Mr. Aslam,  a civil Engineer by profession with his extra ordinary achievements in the field of Project Management ,Project Implementation, and Scheduling effective timelines has been a gem to the institutions he worked for. During his tenure of 38 years of experience and retirement as Chief Engineer from the department of Public Health engineering Department, Government of Punjab, his achievements have been acknowledged by several awards like:
1- Awarded “Quaid-e-Azam Gold Medal” on 25th December 2006 by Tehreek Istehqamat-e-Pakistan Council for best performance of the ADB funded Rawalpindi Environmental Improvement Project costing PKR 5.14 Billion for implementing on fast track basis in the light of Asian Development bank’s guidelines.
2- Awarded “Sitara-e-Pakistan Gold Medal” on 23rd March 2008 for implementation of Bulk Water Supply Project for Murree on a fast track basis. The project cost was about PKR 4.26Million
3- Awarded “Mohterma Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Gold Medal” on 14th August 2009 by Tehreek Istehqamat-e-Pakistan Council for best performance as Chief Engineer (North) Public Health Engineering Department Government of Punjab, Lahore.

7- Process

The following provides a brief overview of the overall process, in phases for a new project.

I. Beginning
We study the questionnaire filled by you in detail and establish different reference points indicating the overall setup of you and your family, the mindsets and trends and establish the building relationship compared to the lifestyle of each individual in your family.

II. Concept Design
In light of the above information, its time to establish the main concept of your house. We then allow our imaginations to flow freely and visualize the above mentioned reference points (established after detailed study of clients requirement and personality) and start building the blocks of the house which are formed due to the direct transformation of established reference points resulting in a highly unique formation of building which is formed as a result of direct transformation of clients inner self. This resulting product is exclusive and unique and is outstanding because the formation was done due to highly innovative imagination cooked with the ingredients of philosophy, psychiatry, art, architecture, history, sociology, community character and links, social and financial logarithms, cultural backgrounds, macro and micro level analysis of human behavior, future generations to come, growth pattern of the selected community, urban orientation and imagination corridors. Due to this reason every house formed is unique in nature and character. Once the imagination phase is over which may take some time depending upon the complexity or simplicity of each individual’s reference points we move on to the preparation of concept diagrams and sketches. During this time we create the general layout, form and overall appearance of both the house and the site. Sketches, drawings and study models are prepared to help evaluate the house architecture ideas and concepts and set the final direction for refining the House. These concepts are then shown to the client for approval in principle, the discussions continue until the design is frozen and signed off by the client.

III. Design Development & Submission
During this phase the sketches and models are more refined and work is progressed further to prepare submission drawings fulfilling the requirements of the relevant authorities including architecture and structure. The drawings are submitted to the relevant authorities for approval.

IV. Detail Design
Working Drawings and specifications are prepared in this phase including details of doors, windows, cabinetry, floor finishes, bathroom and kitchen, infrastructure design, structure etc.

V. Bidding and Negotiations
We prepare tender documents including tender drawings, specification, BOQs, bidding documents and organize competitive bidding between the contractors. We assess the contractor’s manpower, his financial standing, the experience of labor to be involved, the machinery in possession, his ability to read and understand drawings and specific details and his ability to deliver the project in a specified time frame. We answer queries by different contractors and facilitate negotiations between the shortlisted contractor and the client and prepare the contract agreement for award of contract.

VI. Construction
Before the construction we prepare a timeline schedule detailing timelines for different construction activities and milestones to be achieved within a set timeframe. This schedule is than handed over to the client and the contractor. During the construction phase, we supervise the construction progress, the material quality, the progress according to already submitted time schedule and send biweekly progress report to both client and the contractor highlighting the current progress overview. We answer any questions related to the drawings by the contractor, review shop drawings. Payments are made to the contractor by the client after we approve the payment invoice after reviewing the quality of work and details which can only be identified by professionals so that the clients can have the peace of mind in terms of payment and quality of work. Once the construction phase is complete we make the final inspection and prepare a report outlining any deficiencies still to be fixed and once all the queries mentioned in the final house report are taken care by the contractor the final payment is released.

Arkam & Partners

House 406, Street 64, I-8/3, Islamabad

+92 345 543 0179

+92 51 49 000 91