Review

According to a report produced by RS Means Market Intelligence, more than 40% of nonresidential buildings are projects of Design-build and CM at-Risk which also includes more than
80% of military construction projects by using just design-build project delivery method. This
tells us that Design-build and CM at-Risk has really made a lot of progress in the past years.
Also, according to AGC state law matrix, total number of states authorizing Design-build and
CM at-Risk with transportation came over to 35. This level of achievement wasnt there for them
always. They had to come across a long journey in order to reach here. And now they propose
themselves as an established choice. As compared to IPD (Integrated project delivery), they are
now considered to be tried and true. Well, one must say that they have really changed the face
of their history in a relatively short period of time.
If we talk about Design-build, one can easily say that the key behind their success was that they
started to facilitate the owners by finishing the liability gaps who were used to caught b/w
builder and designer pointer fingers. Now the owners had the liability to contract to only one
entity and therefore save themselves from being involved into a number of responsibilities rather
than one.
Now the question which arose is that why all this suddenly became so important? The answer to
this question is that if the standard of design services producing those design documents fall
below the design standards due to the fault of architect or design engineer than the owner has to
pay the price and would only be able to seek recovery of them. It was all due to Spearin Doctrine
as it put owners in the middle of warranting their architect design plans and the builders.
Expecting a design professional to generate good results is good but to expect him to give 100%

is simply unreasonable. Big institutions like AGC, DBIA, LCI etc. who are working with
McGraw Hill will generate a report soon to elaborate the negative expects of expecting a perfect
design from a design professional. This will result in causing the design professionals to simply
say NO to projects that require intensive care. After all insurance companies arent cooperating
with them even. Now, in order to save the owner from all these things and risks, Design-build
simply takes the owner out of Spearin Doctrine cage.
ConsensusDocs design-build agreements which ensure that physical construction work will be
free from any defects, are among very typical approaches used by Design-build and are popular
for design-build delivery methods. The design hence is out of discussion and therefore it saves
the owner for following strict liability standards.
2004 design-build contract documents of The American Institute of Architect (AIA) were
updated recently. And what was shocking to know that 2014 design-build documents have
bounded the design-builders to strictly follow liability standards. Hence the level of risk was
quite enhanced and even insurance companies were not covering the risks. The new AIA builddesign documents are not liable to follow these risks in agreement b/w design-builders and
architects. Due to this potential liability gaps are created for the design-builders and save the
design engineers and architects. Normally, the risk is allocated to that party which can control it.
And I think that architects or design engineers are in the best position to control the risks. Hence
it is advised that whenever you go for design-build and CM at-Risk contracts, always allocate the
risks properly and fairly or you might lose certain benefits that project delivery methods offer
from time to time.