Lisa Washington is CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based Design-Build Institute of America. Opinions are the author’s own.
Alternative delivery methods, including design-build, have transformed infrastructure project delivery across the country, streamlining procurement, driving innovation and accelerating timelines.
A recent Construction Dive opinion piece rightly highlights the benefits of alternative delivery in improving project outcomes. However, it also presents several misconceptions about design-build, its procurement models and its risk allocation that warrant clarification.
Design-build is the fastest-growing project delivery method in the nation, consistently outperforming design-bid-build and construction management at-risk in cost and schedule performance when applied using best practices. FMI Corporation's 2024 Design-Build Utilization Study projects that design-build will drive more than $2.6 trillion in construction spending between 2024 and 2028, accounting for nearly half of all U.S. construction.
The method's increasing adoption stems from its ability to control costs, streamline schedules, drive exceptional outcomes and encourage collaboration and innovation across project teams.
Under the design-build umbrella, best-value and progressive design-build are two commonly used procurement approaches. Owners should make a strategic decision based on their project's goals, statutory authority and internal resources to fully realize the benefits of design-build.
Flexibility and collaboration
While the original op-ed correctly acknowledges the role of design-build, it mischaracterizes key elements of the process. To start, the assertion that the design-builder "has a minimal interface with the owner during design development" is inaccurate. In reality, design-build promotes collaboration from the outset. Whether through an integrated firm or a joint venture, the design-builder's engagement with the owner remains strong.
Design-build teams collaborate with owners to align project goals with decision-making rather than adhere to rigid prescriptive specifications. DBIA's Project Delivery Primer illustrates how this approach provides owners with the flexibility to determine their level of involvement while ensuring collaboration among all stakeholders from the outset. This flexibility and early integration are what make design-build so effective.
Additionally, the claim that design-build shifts "the whole risk of delivering the project at the agreed-upon price" oversimplifies the reality of risk allocation. One of the cornerstones of DBIA Best Practices is the strategic allocation of risk to the party best positioned to manage it. In traditional project delivery, owners and contractors often manage risks separately, which can lead to inefficiencies and disputes.
On the contrary, joint risk assessment is a hallmark of DBIA’s Design-Build Done Right best practices, allowing contracting parties to proactively and cooperatively identify significant project-specific risks and clearly define in the contract how such risks will be handled.
The Project Delivery Primer highlights that strategic risk allocation in design-build leads to better project outcomes by minimizing conflicts and strengthening collaboration. A 2018 CII/Pankow study confirms that design-build projects experience 3.8% less cost growth than traditional delivery models, further reinforcing that strategic risk allocation leads to more predictable project outcomes.
Finally, the suggestion that design-build's two-step procurement process "adds time to procurement" does not fully reflect the realities of alternative delivery. While selecting a design-build team includes a qualifications-based or best-value approach, this process saves time in the long run by reducing costly change orders, expediting decision-making, allowing for the overlap of design and construction and ensuring alignment between design and construction teams from day one.
According to the CII/Pankow study, design-build projects are completed 102% faster than traditional design-bid-build and 61% faster than CMAR. In many cases, design-build projects move forward more quickly due to this streamlined approach.
The reality of PDB
The op-ed also presents an incomplete picture of progressive design-build. PDB is not a separate delivery method but rather a procurement variation within design-build that allows owners to work collaboratively with their design-build team in a phased approach.
DBIA's Deeper Dive: Progressive Design-Build highlights that this structured engagement enables real-time cost estimating, iterative design refinement and improved risk management.
By progressing toward a design concept collaboratively, owners and design-build teams can continuously refine scope, schedule and cost, ensuring the best possible project outcome. The article describes PDB as a "one-step procurement," but DBIA's PDB framework outlines three distinct phases.
Moreover, while stipends can be part of PDB, they are not exclusive to it and are frequently used in best-value design-build to encourage competitive participation. The use of stipends is recognized as a best practice in Design-Build Done Right.
At DBIA, we are committed to ensuring design-build is understood and implemented correctly. Misconceptions about design-build risk create unnecessary barriers to its adoption, potentially hindering the delivery of cost-effective, high-quality infrastructure projects.
Discussions about alternative delivery must be grounded in a complete and accurate understanding of how design-build truly operates.
As the industry continues to embrace design-build, it is critical for discussions about alternative delivery methods to remain rooted in facts and best practices. Design-build, whether best-value or PDB, is a unified, flexible approach that empowers owners with greater control, cultivates deeper collaboration and ultimately delivers superior project outcomes.
