What’s Better for Me: Design-Bid-Build or Design-Build?

So which is the best choice: Design-Bid-Build or Design-Build?

For major projects procured by large institutions, Design-Bid-Build is more common. But the answer is: it depends on your needs.

Design-Bid-Build gives you a best-of-breed solution. You can hire the designer you think is best at design, then competitively bid the resulting work and hire the fabricator you think is best at fabrication. The designer remains accountable to the museum, not to the builder.

Design-Build puts the designer and fabricator on the same team early. When it works, that can mean faster decisions and cleaner handoffs. This can be useful when the project is fast (or when the museum doesn’t have the staff to manage two contracts).

Surprisingly, it’s less about overall cost. Theoretically, Design-Build could make a project more efficient by reducing redesign, rework, and coordination issues. But it’s not always cheaper. In fact, Design-Bid-Build may make it cheaper to buy, because several fabricators competitively bid on the same scope (and fabrication is the biggest part of the budget).

Here’s the thing:

Essentially, the two methods impose discipline differently. Design-Bid-Build gets it through independence and competition. Design-Build gets it largely through integration.

Which kind of discipline does your project need?

Next time: the lesser-known middle ground between the two methods.

Warmly,
Jonathan

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MtM Word of the Day:
Procurement. The process of finding and hiring designers, builders, or production partners for a museum project. It often involves soliciting bids with a deadline. Then you carefully compare offers to manage costs, and negotiate with the preferred source.