Communicating Design Quality Requirements for Public Sector Design/Build Projects

This paper reports the results of a research study focused on how public sector owners articulated the requirements for design quality management in design/build (DB) projects. The research used the content analysis of 75 DB requests for proposals located in 35 states with an aggregate contract value of over $700 million with the mean price per project at roughly $15 million. The projects came from seven federal agencies as well as several state agencies. It found public owners are not availing themselves of the opportunity to evaluate design-builder design quality management plans and are primarily relying on the qualifications evaluation process to ensure design quality requirements will be met. Additionally, virtually all of the public owners in the sample neglected to require constructability reviews as a design quality management requirement in spite of the published benefits of this type of review. Finally, the paper concludes this area is one where a great deal of improvement for practitioners remains and the reason for a lack of focus on design quality in DB projects is due to a failure to shift the owner’s procurement culture from traditional project delivery to DB.