The short answer: in design-build, one company holds a single contract for both the design and the construction of your project. In traditional contracting (also called design-bid-build), you hire an architect first, they produce drawings, and then you put those drawings out to bid and hire a separate general contractor to build them. Same building at the end. Very different path to get there, and very different risk profile along the way.

Here’s how the two actually play out on a real commercial project, and how to pick.

How each method works, in practice

Traditional (design-bid-build)

You sign a contract with an architect. They spend months producing a full set of construction documents. When drawings are done, you send them to three or four general contractors for competitive bids. You pick a GC, sign a second contract, and construction starts. If a bidder flags that a detail is unbuildable or that a specified product has a 22-week lead time, you now have to loop back to the architect for a revision, which the architect bills for, and the GC waits.

Two contracts. Two loyalties. Change orders are common because the people who drew it never had to price or schedule it.

Design-build

You sign one contract with one firm. That firm’s architects, estimators, and project managers sit at the same table from day one. Pricing feeds design. Schedule feeds design. If the mechanical layout is going to blow the budget, the estimator says so in week two, not week twenty. This is the model Hayco uses, and the reason is straightforward: fewer handoffs, fewer surprises.

Comparing the two on what actually matters

• Speed: Design-build overlaps design and construction. Site work and foundations can start while interior details are still being finalized. Traditional is linear, so total schedule is usually longer.
• Cost certainty: In design-build, budget is a design input from day one. In traditional, you don’t get a hard price until bids come back, which can be well after you’ve paid for full drawings. If the low bid is over budget, you redesign.
• Change orders: Traditional projects generate more of them, because gaps and conflicts in the drawings surface during construction and someone has to pay to fix them. Design-build absorbs most of that inside one contract.
• Owner effort: Traditional puts the owner in the middle of every architect-vs-contractor disagreement. Design-build gives you one point of accountability, which matters when you have a business to run.
• Design control: Traditional gives the owner more direct, unfiltered influence over the architect. If you have a very specific aesthetic vision and want an architect working purely for you, that’s a real advantage.
• Competitive pricing: Traditional’s open bid can drive a lower construction number on paper. Whether that survives change orders is another question.

Pick design-build if…

• Schedule matters. You have a lease expiring, a tenant moving in, an aircraft hangar that has to be operational by a certain quarter.
• You want a single throat to choke. One contract, one team, one accountable party.
• Your project has real technical complexity (healthcare, aviation, industrial) where constructability input shapes the design in meaningful ways. Our work on projects like the Surry County Aircraft Hangar and Surry County Judicial Center is a good example of why coordinating design and build early pays off.
• You’re a business owner, not a real estate developer, and you don’t want to referee two consultants.

Pick traditional if…

• The building is straightforward, the timeline is generous, and you have in-house construction expertise.
• You already have a long relationship with an architect you trust and want them working solely for you.
• You are required by procurement rules (some public bodies) to bid design and construction separately.
• You need a fully designed set of documents to shop competitively across many builders.

The honest bottom line

Traditional contracting isn’t broken. It’s how most buildings in America got built. But for commercial owners who care about schedule certainty, price certainty, and not spending nights refereeing an architect and a GC, design-build has earned its ground. It compresses the timeline, folds pricing into design, and puts one team on the hook for the outcome.

If you’re weighing the two for a specific project, a short conversation is usually enough to tell which fits. We’re happy to walk through the trade-offs on your building. Get in touch when you’re ready.