Design-build places designers and builders in the same room, providing the opportunity for the kind of collaboration that the construction industry so badly needs. Opportunity for collaboration, however, is not the same as a guarantee of collaboration.

While design-build offers great possibilities, it definitely covers the full spectrum from being almost as dysfunctional as design-bid-build to being almost as collaborative as integrated project delivery (IPD).

On the left side of this spectrum, you have those design-build projects that use bridging documents, lowest bidder selection, and a team that doesn’t work well together. Although the builders are contractually combined with the architect of record, these projects are not collaborative, let alone integrated.

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