Delivery Method
Design-Build
Design-build puts design and construction under one contract: the owner engages EWB, and EWB teams with architects and engineers to deliver the project from concept through keys with single-point accountability for cost, schedule, and performance.
Fit
When this method is the right call
- › The owner wants one accountable party instead of refereeing between architect and builder
- › Speed matters: design and construction can overlap under one roof
- › The program is well understood — a prototype, a rollout, a building type we have delivered repeatedly
- › Budget certainty early in design is worth more than maximum design iteration
Advantages
- ✓ Single-point accountability — no gap between design errors and construction claims
- ✓ Fastest overall schedule of the standard delivery methods
- ✓ Cost certainty earlier than design-bid-build can offer
- ✓ Fewer change orders, because the builder priced its own documents
Approach
How Eleven Western runs it
Design partners, not subordinates
Our design-build architects are partners chosen for the project type. They hold the design; we hold the risk. Owners get one throat to choke without the design being an afterthought.
The budget is a design input
Cost lives inside every design conversation from day one, so the design that gets documented is the design that gets built.
Prototype discipline
For rollout clients, design-build compounds: one set of details refined across sites, with each project inheriting everything the last one learned.
Process
What to expect, in order
Owner criteria locked with a target budget
Architect and engineers matched to the building type
Design advances with live pricing; the price typically locks at design development
Early packages start while documents finish
One party accountable through closeout and beyond
Who does what
Roles & responsibilities
| Party | Responsibility |
|---|---|
| Owner | One contract, one point of accountability; approves program, budget, and milestones |
| Architect / consultants | Design team under the EWB umbrella, selected for the project type |
| EWB | Total delivery accountability: design management, cost, schedule, construction, warranty |
| Subcontractors | Bought against documents the builder helped shape; design-assist trades early where warranted |
Risks & how we control them
⚠ Owner loses independent design advocacy
Transparent design milestones with owner sign-off at each; owners are encouraged to engage their own criteria consultant on complex programs.
⚠ Scope ambiguity hiding inside a single number
The basis-of-design document is written in owner-readable scope language and walked through line by line before contract.
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 Assist
EWB joins during design development to price in real time, resolve constructability before bid day, and lock long-lead packages early.
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-build on your project
A Project Executive — not a call center — reviews every inquiry the same day.