The hunt for design/build

By Chris Thompson
Editor at Large

Chris Thompson Editor at Large

Design/build. It's amazing how two small words and a dash (or a hyphen if you prefer) could mean so many things to so many different people.

And we're not talking about the technical meanings. Oh no, if we went down that road we'd never get back, and this wouldn't be a special section, it would be a book. What we mean is the more theoretical, general notion of design/build -- what that phrase means to the people who have it, those who want it and the others who never want to see it again.

There's got to be something more to this concept than a simple delivery method. It has to hold some greater significance. But look at the words: design and build. Taken separately they mean so little. Put them together and you wield the power to send some to the aspirin bottle and others to Washington, D.C., to form national organizations in its honor.

Design/build. To hear it from some people, it's the Garden of Eden, the Promised Land, the mythical place where construction projects are friendly, cost-effective and always fast. To others, it's the big ogre waiting in the bushes, ready to gobble up the traditional, honorable and still durable construction process and wash it down with hard-earned tax dollars.

With this in mind, The Daily Reporter staff sank once again into the murky depths of design/build. We neither found any monsters nor did we discover the home of that forbidden fruit. We found, as expected, a gray area somewhere in between. And we walked away, for the second year running, with a plethora of different definitions depending on who you talk to.

Design/build is an unknown quantity for road contractors considering the method. It's speedy, cheap and cooperative for those who use it in the private sector. It's unattainable for at least two cities that see its benefits. It's akin to the legislative Holy Grail as well as an expensive source of legal wrangling for the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District. And, of course, it's a reason for existence for the Design-Build Institute of America.

Design/build is a construction enigma. It's good and bad. Everything for some and nothing for others. But like it or not, it's there, and it's probably going to stay. As long as it sticks around, so will we, meeting it at every turn, trying to pin it with a definition and, at the very least, providing you with updates.

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