TABLE OF CONTENTS The use of a competitive, design-build selection process for the procurement for public, institutional, and corporate facilities represents a considerable departure from the design-bid-build procedures normally employed by most such organizations in North America (Fig. 10.1). The design-build process is increasingly selected by those owners because it offers the flexibility to respond to their urgent physical, financial, legal, and political needs and restraints to a greater degree than can traditional procurement procedures. Consequentially, to take full advantage of the process, each request for qualifications (RFQs) or for design-build proposals should be drafted to fit the owner s unique situation. Standard forms and contracts for other types of project delivery are of little value in a design-build process, except for general guidance, or as a checklist. This chapter (1) discusses the various elements of the competitive, design-build selection process, (2) suggests what information should be provided to the proposers, and (3) identifies the specific facts and technical data that should be submitted to the owner for the proposals to be evaluated and considered for award of contract.
An invariable prerequisite of design-build competitions is that the owner s needs must be described precisely, and in a manner that will be universally understood and interpreted. This aspect of design-build requires the owner s staff to conduct adequate research and investigations to determine the facility requirements, and to document them unambiguously. The necessity to determine needs in advance contrasts sharply with the traditional...
