What Design-Build should be: The 'Fully Integrated' Firm (Feature‪)‬

Design-build, whatever that may mean, is being heralded as the future of the AEC industry. It lies at the core of the AIA's Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) model, among others. Almost all "design-build" projects today are orchestrated patchworks of separate architecture, engineering, and construction firms who, outside of an occasional project, operate primarily under standard project delivery models, such as Construction Management (CM). There are very few firms that truly integrate architecture and engineering, much less construction. Only a "fully integrated" firm is capable of unencumbered collaboration, and only a fully integrated firm will develop the kind of internal culture necessary to motivate the difficult detailed work required to exploit every opportunity for increasing value and efficiency.