Design-build contractor · San Antonio
The most expensive thing that happens on a custom home usually isn't a construction mistake. It is a set of drawings that get finished before anyone prices them, and an owner who finds out months later that the house they fell in love with costs a third more than they planned to spend.
Design-build exists to stop that. One contract covers design and construction, so the drawings and the budget stay attached to each other the whole way.
Design-bid-build
Design-build
Design-bid-build isn't wrong — it is the right structure for plenty of projects, particularly public work where competitive bidding is required. It is a poor fit for a first-time custom home owner with a firm budget.
Budget, site and design get discussed together from the first meeting, because they constrain each other.
Not a bid at the end. If a decision moves the number, you hear about it while you can still change your mind.
The structural engineer and the builder talk to each other during design rather than after it.
We prepare and submit, respond to review comments, and schedule inspections. Design questions from a reviewer come back to people who are still involved.
When something is wrong, there is no second company to point at. That is the entire proposition.
Historic renovation + custom pool & spa
A 1902 house through design review, an engineer's foundation report, and six months of construction — with the same team on all of it.
Custom home + ADU
A main house and a dedicated ADU planned together on one lot, which only works if the design and the build are coordinated.
One company holds responsibility for both the design and the construction. You hire us; we coordinate the architect and the engineer and then build what they draw. The traditional alternative is design-bid-build, where you hire a designer, take the finished drawings out to contractors, and hope the prices come back near your budget.
Mostly because of who is responsible when something doesn't line up. Under separate contracts, a drawing that can't be built for your budget is nobody's fault: the architect designed what you asked for, the builder priced what was drawn. Under design-build it is our problem, because we are on both sides of it.
Yes. If you already have a designer you want to work with, we coordinate with them. Design-build describes who carries the risk of the two halves fitting together, not a requirement to use our people.
Not automatically, and anyone who promises that is guessing. What it reliably does is make cost visible earlier, while changes are still cheap. The expensive version of any project is the one where the budget conversation happens after the drawings are finished.
Tell us the site, roughly what you want, and what you intend to spend. We'll tell you whether those three things fit together before anybody draws anything.
