You make a good point, Richard. I have probably handled as many projects that way, as through competitive bidding. I see benefits to both approaches, depending on the circumstances. And the analysis of those circumstances is up to the architect and his or her client on each project.
What I believe is important here, for the purposes of this discussion, is to cite reasons why an architect's involvement in the bidding/negotiation process provides an added benefit to our clients. And you have done that, in your suggested management of your invited Design-Build approach, wherein the architect and his client invite a shortlist of prequalified GCs to interview, then select one early on, probably near the end of SD. This GC then provides costing information all along the DD-CD path, to help us from exceeding the budget. Sounds familiar; I have done this before, and it can work. One was on a condominium mid rise project in a major metro urban core. it did work well on that project. There is some convincing to do with regard to the GC's efforts, because normally at this stage (end of SD) he is not under contract with the client and everything the GC does is gratis. The obvious motivation and benefit to the GC is that he Will have the job, if he helps us keep the project on budget and still deliver an acceptable quality level to the client. Intensive value engineering is typical during this approach and that can be a good thing, especially if we can be compensated for those VE efforts.
However, in many public projects, this process may not be embraced by the entity for whom we are working as architects. For instance, I have managed large airport, theme park, industrial and other projects where the clients have mandated a public bid approach. If we apply the same rigor of attention to detail, specifications and project management on our residential projects as we do on publicly bid efforts, the quality of our documents should be very high. Of course, nothing is perfect, and yes, any competent contractor can find something, somewhere in our work that may not be perfect and try to use that as an avenue for change orders. It is in our best interests and our client's to do a thorough job of coordinating our documents.
Which approach yields the best value for our residential clients and also provides us with a comfortable working relationship with the GC? Only each of us as the architect can help our clients decide. So, perhaps what we gain from this discussion is at least two approaches, and likely more (variations on each), as to how to involve the contractors in bidding & pricing our designs. The important issue is that we are helping our clients to obtain a great bang for their buck, which wouldn't be accomplished without our involvement and focus on the client's goals.
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Rand Soellner AIA
Architect/Owner/Principal
Rand Soellner Architect
Cashiers NC
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