Advantages of Design Build

Monday, February 27, 2023 7:00 AM by Taylor Studios in General


Advantages of Design-Build

With more than 30 years and hundreds of clients, Taylor Studios has worked with clients at every phase of the exhibit process – from conception to completion, and everything it takes to reach the anticipated grand opening. We have worked as partners, consultants, designers, fabricators and a combination of all. Suffice to say: we’ve seen it all.

What is Design-Build and Why Should My Organization Consider this Approach?

Design-Build is a project delivery system that includes planning, design and fabrication all under one contract. Partnering with the right team, from the start is vital to reaching the project goal line. Basically, it’s like putting together any sports team. You pick teammates you know you can collaborate with, trust, lean on for support and ultimately win the game with. Design-Build has many advantages to ensuring a successful completed project when working together as a team.

Design-Build = Cost Savings.

When the design and fabrication team are contracted together, the project budget can be controlled. Meaning, as the exhibit design process is underway the Taylor Studios team is also mindful of the budget and will design to meet the client needs without breaking the budget. As part of our design process, we provide multiple rounds of budgeting to ensure the project continues to remain financially on track.

What if my organization wants to proceed with Design Only and Build Our Exhibits at a Later Time?

We understand this situation happens. While many design-only firms have established relationships with fabricators, we find that sometimes they can lack a depth of understanding for fabrication methods, materials, and processes. In these scenarios (once into the fabrication process), clients might be asked to replace or update approved designs with more practical and durable concepts due to the designers’ lack of expertise. Thus, adding cost and potentially blowing the budget parameters. We suggest contracting as a Design-Build with a pause. We worked with many clients that wanted to proceed with the design phase and then pause for fundraising before moving forward with the fabrication. Doing this ensures your project will stay with the original team and the budget busting redesign rounds are in check.

Why Taylor Studios?

Taylor Studios is a true design-build firm. We can see your exhibit project through from beginning to end. By pooling our resources, the creative process is seamless and readily accessible to various disciplines and expertise. It provides our clients the most value for their dollar.

Need More Advantages?

A smooth-flowing process. Involvement in the design phase means the fabricator will already have thorough knowledge of the project. Transition from design to production often goes unnoticed, which is seldom the case if one utilizes a separate fabricator.

A separate fabricator requires an extensive period of project downtime in order to become familiar with the project. Often this takes anywhere from two weeks to two months, during which time the client continues to pay for administrative and research time.

Because a design-only firm has familiarity with the project, it must provide the fabricator with extensive documentation about the project and designs. If the design firm is also your fabrication firm, the level of detail required for this documentation declines dramatically.

Design-only firms typically serve as project consultants throughout the production phase to clarify design questions and to serve as a liaison between the client and the fabricator. This increases project management costs.

The client’s administrative burden is reduced. RFP’s and interviews can be cut in half. During the design and fabrication of the exhibits, the client is free from coordinating and arbitrating between separate design and construction contracts. Construction and bid documents can add as much as 10% to the design fees for a design only project.

When designers and fabricators from two different firms combine to form a team, they may lack the cohesion, creativity, communication, and single-source responsibility that comes from a design-build under one roof.

Finally, our design and production departments are continually in communication with each other, anticipating snags. They share a common vision and philosophy from the conception of each project.

Share this on social networks