The Philosophy of Design Build & Cost Plus Construction
Why Design Build Construction is the Best Choice for You
Design build construction is a benefit to the customer for a variety of reasons. Foremost, design build allows you to be involved in the project every step of the way. Whether we do your project in house or work with outside input, design build gives maximum flexibility and the guarantee that you will be satisfied with every detail of your project. Design build allows the architect, designers, decorators and contractors to work together as a team for a collaboration of efforts that achieve the best project possible. It also allows us to work as partners with you to take general concepts to fruition without spending a lot of hours drafting details at great expense.
Unlike rigid bid projects, we are involved from the beginning. We understand your likes and dislikes; we better understand the concept and the feel that you are trying to achieve. Design build allows the team to add and subtract details, change sizing and shape, and get a more timely response for any cost changes. The result is spending less money drafting a project that could be way above budget.
Everyone has their individual strong suits. Some designers have a creative mind and are great with concepts but lack product knowledge, or are weak in structural design. Design build and the involvement of the team concept allows for people to be good at what they are best at, and allows other members of the team to fill in the blanks. Cost control from the beginning helps to keep a project in budget.
The bidding process is a guessing game at best. All aspects of the project must be drawn with great detail, at much expense, to produce a plan that explains little to someone who may have limited knowledge about the project. All this bidding process results in is a price based on a worse case scenario from rigid ideas that took too much time to develop. What is not spelled out in great detail is what is known as bid busting estimators. These estimators will bid low looking at a list of items they know they will be able to produce expensive change orders for, which in turn make the project profitable. As you can see, the temptation is not to put in unspecified items, because we want our price to be in line with other budget numbers. The bidding process breaks up the team concept and prevents a group effort. Now there are adversarial conditions between the owner, who wants the most for his buck, and the contractor that is trying to make a profit.
As with bid projects, you will receive a budget amount for your project. All you need to begin is a minimal set of prints and a basic idea for your build. We do the rest with input and ideas from you. Design build avoids the complications of change orders holding up the job, and expensive costs for modifications made along the way.
Remodels often present unexpected challenges and require fine-tuning to get the best results possible. Choosing a design build strategy prevents the bid price coming in at a worst-case scenario cost. We will personally sit down with you and discuss the percentages and estimated costs for each portion of your project. Our goal is work for you, design build and cost plus construction serves to accomplish this goal.