Design-Bid-Build

An approach to homebuilding where you first hire an architect to design your plans, then send them out to be competitively bid by a small handful of general contractors. As distinct from the design/build approach, where your architect and builder exist within a single firm (or are independent but work closely together from the beginning of the process), design-bid-build offers more flexibility to assemble your own team of skilled specialists.

The advantage of this, if you choose to see it as such, is you’re afforded the ability to send out your drawings for a preliminary budget at the conceptual stage, and again at the final design stages. Getting to know different builders can give you more flexibility in finding one that feels best-suited to your needs and your project (versus being locked in to whomever is assigned to your project at a design-build firm).

The disadvantage of this approach is that there is often much longer response times between architects and builders when you need to gather pricing. And, since your architect may not have up-to-date information on construction costs, you risk having them design something that you can’t afford to build, hence the value of a preliminary budget.