Why Design-Build Is a Better Building Strategy Than the Traditional Building Strategies
As a construction project owner, you need to ensure your delivery method guarantees the best results. This is vital, especially when you want to cut down risks and promptly complete your project without exceeding budget limits.
This article will guide you through the design-build strategy along with a few of its merits, and also highlight the traditional building methods like design-bid-build. These are the two most common construction delivery methods. This comparison will help you comprehend the superiority of design-build in the construction industry.
Design-Build
Design-build is a popular delivery method that, according to DBIA's latest research, delivers 102% faster than the design-bid-build method. In a nutshell, design-build involves using one entity known as the design-builder. This entity handles everything from planning and designing to commissioning and construction.
Why You Should Use Design-build
High-quality work
Design builders get selected based on their qualifications and merits. Therefore, expect quality output from design-build contractors. Plus, the pool of professional builders from different disciplines keeps each other in check to ensure the high standards of quality construction are implemented.
Faster delivery
With design-build, you avoid the time-consuming bidding phase present in design-bid-build. Plus, since this method involves a single team, decision-making and implementation are more manageable. This means the project is completed faster, allowing it to start generating income or serve its intended purpose sooner.
Reliable budget
Research has proved that involving a contractor in the earliest phases of your construction project results in more consistent and reliable estimates. Since the contractors work collaboratively with other building professionals, you can enjoy getting budgetary advice on areas you feel you have some shortcomings with, leading to a near-accurate budget estimate.
Optimized collaboration
Most construction projects face communication and collaboration issues that are often costly and debilitating. However, with design-builders from one team, everything is streamlined to ensure the process runs nearly seamlessly.
What About the Design-Bid-Build?
This delivery method, on the other hand, follows a more conventional approach. With it, you need to hire an architect to design your project and a separate contractor to construct it.
Design-bid-build follows a simple sequence and is therefore ideal for more straightforward small-scale construction projects. Especially in situations where builders and designers don't need to be contractually obligated to one another. This method's drawback is one cumbersome relay of information among all your building team players.
Final Thoughts
The main difference between design-build and design-bid-build becomes apparent during the assigning of responsibilities and duties. With design-build, you get one unified team, while with design-bid-build you deal with separate contractors.
In general, design-build is more efficient, promises faster deliveries, and practically guarantees more accurate budget estimates than the traditional design-bid-build delivery method.