Design-Build
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Design-build is a project delivery method in which a single entity holds contracts for both design and construction, making that entity solely responsible to the owner for schedule, cost, and quality.
Why Design-Build Changes the Pursuit Structure
Unlike design-bid-build, where an AEC firm competes on design merit alone, design-build pursuits require a teaming agreement before the proposal is written. The contractor-designer relationship must be locked in early, which means BD teams are negotiating team roles, fee splits, and liability exposure simultaneously with developing win themes. Owners evaluating design-build submissions score technical approach, past performance, and price together, so a proposal that separates those elements reads as organizationally unprepared. The pursuit clock also starts earlier: firms that wait for an RFP to identify a construction partner routinely lose to teams that have been cultivating that relationship for months.
Qualification Criteria That Catch Firms Off Guard
Most design-build RFQs require demonstrated experience as the design-build entity, not as a subconsultant or prime on a traditional delivery project. A firm with 40 years of design experience may be disqualified if it cannot show projects where it held the design-build contract directly. Past performance narratives must reflect integrated delivery outcomes: schedule compression, single-point accountability, and owner cost certainty. BD teams should audit their project database specifically for delivery method before shortlisting relevant experience, because misfiled projects waste proposal hours and weaken technical sections.
Strategic Implications for BD Teams
Design-build market share has grown consistently across federal, transportation, and municipal sectors, which means BD directors who built their pipelines around traditional delivery are now competing in a different qualification environment. Teaming strategy becomes a standing BD activity rather than a pursuit-by-pursuit reaction: maintaining pre-qualified contractor relationships, understanding each partner's bonding capacity, and knowing which owners prefer contractor-led versus designer-led structures all affect go/no-go decisions before a project is ever advertised. Kantiv surfaces design-build opportunities by delivery method, letting pursuit teams identify relevant project types early enough to build the right team before an RFQ drops. Firms that track design-build pipeline separately from traditional delivery can allocate teaming resources more precisely and avoid the scramble that produces weak partner agreements.
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