Your team has secured a contract or a grant for a large project and your team is ready to get to work on preliminary planning. Both you and the Owner have a vision of the desired outcome, but what does a highly effective design-build project look like?

1. On Time. While unanticipated setbacks can impact deadlines, staying on schedule is critical to a project’s success. Bringing all stakeholders to the table at the beginning of the process will impact the successful management and coordination of multiple timelines. This collaboration lays the foundation for confronting unanticipated challenges and provides room for the team to roll up their sleeves and develop solutions for how to pivot from those challenges.
2. Within or Under Budget. Recently, the University of Washington selected a design-build team to complete a 300,000-SF high-performance facility within a short amount and on a fixed budget. The project came in at approximately 2.5 percent less than the grant budget and $4.5 million was saved throughout the project. Whether it is a health care facility or large-scale public project, every client has a budget to maintain and wants to get the most out of their investment and it is well documented that design-build saves money.
3. High Value. The Kalanihookaha Community Learning Center in Hawaii was this team’s first design-build project. The center provides the surrounding community a place to gather that offers career development and learning programs emphasizing native approaches to health, education, and environment, important to the local culture. How does your project serve your client and the surrounding community?
4. Innovation. Collaboration often spurs innovation, not only in design and aesthetics but also in the approach to unanticipated challenges. Research suggests that design-build success is driving growth and innovation across all sectors and project sizes. Does your team leverage innovation and does design-build facilitate seamless incorporation of innovation?
5. Effective Teamwork. The most effective design-build teams are created early in the process – during the Owner’s procurement decision-making process – and span through project execution. Teams build strong relationships, learn how to deepen their commitment to collaboration, employ open and consistent lines of communication with all stakeholders and deliver the best product together.

Every year DBIA is proud to recognize highly effective projects that exemplify the principles of Design-Build Done Right®. Now that implementation of the infrastructure law is underway, it is important to showcase design-build at its best and how this approach maximizes collaboration and innovation, saves time and money, and makes a positive impact in our communities. Stakeholders will look to design-build to play a role in delivering high-quality projects, across all sectors, and DBIA believes it is important to elevate these projects and teams for their contributions.

Take a look at DBIA’s inventory of some of the best design-build projects across the country. Has your design-build team delivered a high-value project that deserves to be recognized among industry professionals and can serve as an example for projects to come? DBIA’s National Project/Team Awards Competition is open and accepting submissions. Gain recognition for your team’s hard work. Review the guidelines and submit your project before May 25, 2022.