Design-build is an integrated delivery process that has been embraced by the world’s great civilizations. In ancient Mesopotamia, the Code of Hammurabi (1800 BC) fixed absolute accountability upon master builders for both design and construction. In the succeeding millennia, projects ranging from cathedrals to cable-stayed bridges, from cloisters to corporate headquarters, have been conceived and constructed using the paradigm of design-build.

 

Return to the time-honored approach of the Master Builder, where a single source has absolute accountability for both design and construction. When the citizens of classical Greece envisioned their great temples, public buildings and civil works, master builders were engaged to both design and construct these monumental structures. Master builders accepted full responsibility for integrating conceptual design with functional performance.

 

To assume anything less than complete accountability for delivering a project was unthinkable. Throughout each massive logistical undertaking, they commanded skilled craftsmen, procured time-tested materials, and controlled every aspect of the project. A master builder with the chief architect, engineer and builder molded into one. Enduring structures such as the Parthenon and the Theatre of Dionysus are testimony to an age and a process that are greatly admired, though the process was thought to be virtually abandoned by modern designers and constructors.