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About

PLAZA is a Cost Planning and Quantity Surveying Firm. We are new as an organization but not in the construction industry. After 20 years of practice, we have accumulated a solid knowledge about all aspects involved in a Building Project, which we would like to turn into relevant cost consultancy and make it available to everyone.
 
Our objective is to provide services that are holistic and bespoke. We understand that each client has unique requirements and would like to investigate and learn more about the possibilities they have. PLAZA addresses that need by listening, understanding and working collaboratively. 

Home Renovation

(...) "Cost planning as a team responsibility (...) [it should consider] such issues as value, use and effectiveness of the completed building. Such an approach places greater demands on the cost planner with a commensurate need for the design team to become more involved in the cost and value consequences of their decisions. These are new and exacting challenges being placed on the design team. However, it is imperative that we continue to provide high-quality professional services that clients and the community desire and that are suited to their environment. However, certain requirements will remain constant and we must always strive to deliver well-designed, economical and effective buildings that are valued by their owners and users, both now and for the building’s life cycle."

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Smith et all., 2016 in Building cost planning for the design team

Camila Santos, BArch, BUrbPlan, NZIQS (Affil.)

I am the founder of PLAZA. I started my career in the construction industry in Brazil in 2001 as a draftsperson and purchasing officer. In 2004, I became an architect and planner and worked for an architecture firm for the following seven years as a design coordinator, construction estimator and project manager. The variety of projects in which I was involved - from bathroom renovations to Green Neighbourhood Development - has deeply contributed to my practical knowledge about construction and all its aspects. Between liaising with clients, designers, local authorities, builders, suppliers, trades, site supervisors and preparing the different levels of drawings and corresponding costs, my expertise in construction economics grew solidly and my vision became holistic. I practiced independently from 2012 to 2017.
 
In 2018 I immigrated to New Zealand to join my family and further my knowledge by studying Quantity Surveying. At that time, I worked as a property manager assistant. In 2021, I joined a design-build construction company in Marlborough, performing the same job I did for years: design coordination and construction cost estimation. Together with my then director, we developed the philosophy underpinning our cost services and now, in his loving memory, I offer via PLAZA.     
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