Delivery Method

As owners constantly reassess their design-build procurement, contracting and execution, questions arise such as how much of the design should they control and what is the risk of taking on responsibility for that design?

Progressive Design-Build (PDB) facilitates involvement of the design-build team during the earliest stages of the owner’s project development, ensuring they are part of the project team developing design solutions. This promotes the greatest amount of collaboration between the three key players in a construction contract – the owner, the designer and the contractor.

While a project design is usually 35 percent complete (or more) by the time a design-builder is procured in the traditional two-step design-build process, PDB adds the design-builder to the owner’s team even earlier in the design phase. When the design is somewhere between 50 and 75 percent complete, the design-builder issues a Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP).

The other major feature of PDB is that the design-builder is selected almost entirely on qualifications. The later price gives some owners heartburn, but if anything, there is more cost certainty for the owner.