Cheap finishes are not cheap. They are loans the building takes out against future maintenance budgets, and tropical climates accelerate the repayment schedule. The procurement saving on a lobby tile or a door handle disappears by the second replacement cycle, and goes negative from there. A look at the math of finishes selection in mid-rise residential, and how the discipline of allocating deliberately changes how a building ages.

The architect-developer tension is usually framed as a clash of taste. The honest read is mathematical. The developer reads one column on the spreadsheet, which is construction cost. The architect reads two, which are construction cost and lifecycle cost. Both columns are real. Most value-engineering meetings only put one of them on the table.