8 | DBIA
nated for the owner, who can also appreciate that
the closing of warranty gaps virtually eliminates the
owner from potential litigation claims.
For the practitioners of design-build, there are
also benefits. In addition to having less adminis-
trative burden born through the streamlining of
communication between designers and builders,
practitioners can also experience higher profit mar-
gins which stems from having an integrated team
equally committed to controlling costs.
Jenny says the advantages in this methodology
are readily evident when considering the tradition-
al model, when multiple contracts are awarded to
autonomous low bidders and the builder works
off an architectural design completed months ear-
lier. A process that means should any specification
need to be altered, the builder has to go back to
the owner, who then goes back to the architect
who is already working on some other project, but
then make the necessary changes, goes back to the
owner, who then goes to back to the builder in a
tedious, if not frustrating, cycle of requests for in-
