Delivery Method
Design Assist
Design assist brings the builder onto the team while the architect is still designing — under the owner’s contract structure, with the architect holding the design. EWB prices in real time, flags constructability issues while they are still drawing changes, and helps lock long-lead packages before permits issue.
Fit
When this method is the right call
- › Schedule pressure means design and procurement must overlap
- › The project has systems where builder input changes the design — refrigeration, structure, building envelope, kitchens
- › You want bid-day certainty instead of bid-day surprise
- › The architect wants a builder in the room who serves the documents rather than second-guessing them
Advantages
- ✓ Constructability resolved on paper, not in the field
- ✓ A contract price with no surprises in it, because the builder helped shape the documents
- ✓ Long-lead equipment ordered months ahead of a conventional sequence
- ✓ The adversarial bid-day dynamic never develops
Approach
How Eleven Western runs it
We serve the documents
Design assist works when the builder respects design intent. Our comments propose solutions with cost and schedule consequences attached — the architect and owner decide.
Live pricing, not milestone ambushes
Pricing feedback lands within the design cycle it applies to, so the team never designs three weeks past a budget problem.
Long-lead first
Switchgear, refrigeration, storefront systems, and kitchen equipment get procurement strategies before the drawings finish — because those lead times, not the drawings, usually set the opening date.
Process
What to expect, in order
Typically at design development — early enough to matter, late enough to price real decisions
Rolling estimates aligned to design packages
Every comment tracked to disposition
Long-lead procurement released ahead of full documents
A number both sides already understand
Who does what
Roles & responsibilities
| Party | Responsibility |
|---|---|
| Owner | Holds both contracts; makes cost and scope decisions with full information |
| Architect / consultants | Own the design; incorporate accepted input on their own authority |
| EWB | Real-time pricing, constructability, logistics, procurement strategy, and development of the contract price |
| Subcontractors | Early design-assist trades (mechanical, electrical, refrigeration) join as needed |
Risks & how we control them
⚠ The builder overreaching into design decisions
Input is logged as proposals with consequences; the architect dispositions each item. Design authority never moves.
⚠ Cost feedback lagging design decisions
Pricing cadence is tied to the design schedule in the kickoff agreement — feedback inside the cycle it applies to.
Compare
Other delivery methods
Preconstruction
Budgets, constructability, logistics, and value engineering grounded in 43 years of cost history — the discipline every other delivery method stands on.
Design-Build
One contract, one team, one number — EWB holds the construction risk and teams with design partners from concept through keys.
Construction Management
CM at-risk delivery: open-book buyout with the owner in the room, a contract price with a documented basis, and shared visibility from precon through closeout.
Talk through design assist on your project
A Project Executive — not a call center — reviews every inquiry the same day.