Architecture, engineering, and construction under a single contract with a single accountable team. Faster, cleaner, and more honest than the traditional design-bid-build process.
The traditional way — hire an architect, get drawings, bid the drawings to three contractors, pick one, discover the drawings missed a load-bearing wall, change-order your way to a 35% over-budget result — has been broken for decades. Design-build solves it.
Under a design-build contract, the same firm designs and builds the project. The architect knows what materials are actually available. The estimator pressure-tests the design as it’s drawn. The project manager who’ll run the build is in the design meetings from week one.
Phase 1 — Discovery (1–3 weeks): we walk the property, understand your goals, and produce a feasibility report with a budget range. Phase 2 — Schematic Design (3–6 weeks): floor plans, elevations, and a more accurate budget. Phase 3 — Design Development (4–8 weeks): permit-ready drawings, full specifications, and a guaranteed-maximum-price contract. Phase 4 — Construction. Phase 5 — Punch-list and warranty.
On a typical $700K project, design-build compresses the schedule by 14 to 22 weeks compared with the traditional design-bid-build cycle. Cost overruns drop from an industry-typical 11% to under 3% on our design-build work because the budget is pressure-tested as the drawings develop, not after.
If you’ve already paid for architectural drawings you love, design-build doesn’t make sense — hire us as the contractor and let the existing architect lead. If you want to bid your project to multiple contractors for price competition, traditional design-bid-build is the right path. We’ll tell you honestly which is right for your situation.
A free 30-minute consultation usually answers the questions a website never can.
