House and Renner Construction, Inc.

   Commercial Design Build  

Life is moving at a fast pace and we plan to keep up. Clients demand productivity and as client facilities must be operational and money producing as quickly as possible generating a return on investment we understand. Our Design Build Process provides initial services required to get the project off the ground and moving towards completion while construction experts and design personnel work through the details yet to come.

Design-Build  as defined in wikipedia focuses on interweaving the design, permit, and construction schedules in order to capture the time lost in a traditional design-bid-build environment. This does not shorten the time it takes to complete the individual tasks of creating drawings, acquiring building permits, or actually constructing the building. Instead, a quality design-build firm will bring together design and construction professionals in a collaborative environment to complete these tasks at the same time. By using the Design/Build mechanism, owners can benefit from a strategy that places a premium on delivering the project sooner with less of a focus on delivering the project at a lower construction cost.

Typically the hallmark of a Design/Build project is that one organization is responsible for both design and construction of the project. If this organization is a contractor, the process is known as "Contractor-led Design-Build". If the organization is a design firm, the process is known as "Design-led Design-Build". In either case, the organization employed by the owner rarely handles both aspects of design and construction in-house. In fact, the organization often subcontracts with on-site personnel (if design-led) as well as architects, designers (if contractor-led), planners, consultants, etc.

Owners should consider the benefits of each form of design-build in determining what sort of design-build firm to engage for a project. As a general rule, the more complex a project becomes, the more valuable the design-led model becomes.

Benefits of Design-Build
It is important to note that the design-build method, while not focused on saving the owner construction costs, nonetheless often saves the owner money on the overall project. The combined effects of carrying a construction loan (which typically carries a higher interest rate than permanent financing) and an earlier useful on-line date usually yields considerable overall profitability to the project and may make seemingly unfeasible projects into genuine opportunities.

The compression of time is only one important aspect of the implementation of this system. Other attributes include:

increased accountabilty by the service provider,
single source project delivery, and
a value based project feedback system 

Accountability
Rather than a parcelized level of responsibility of the classic design-bid-build, Design-Build provides an integrated solution for the owner or client. This gets projects away from the finger-pointing that has become (unfortunately) commonplace in modern construction projects and allows the owner to look to one entity with questions or concerns.


Single Source
Instead of having several contractors and consultants to deal with, an owner has just one contact for the project. Design revisions, project feedback, budgeting, permitting, construction issues, change orders, and billing can all be routed through the Design-Build firm. This single point of contact allows maximum flexibility for the owner to issue change directives without having to readjust contracts or manage change order documentation with perhaps a dozen contractors. A quality Design-Builder will leverage that flexibility for the owner's benefit by continually refining the construction program to maximize the owner's value at the completion of the project.


Value-based project feedback
Typically, in order for a contractor to bid on a project, very specific details relating to the methods and materials must be given to avoid any ambiguity and to make an "apples to apples" comparison of bids. In a design-build context, the owner, the owner's other consultants, and the Design-Builder can work together to determine what methods and materials will maximize the owner's value. In instances where marginally more expensive materials, designs, or construction methods might yield a higher return on investment for the owner than those of lower cost, the owner is free to adjust the project's program without having to re-bid the entire project.