What you should know about early builder involvement

We have had a few clients and prospective clients recently express interest in having early contractor involvement for their projects. This can make a lot of sense because having a builder involved early can help with providing costing and buildability advice and input into the design process, as the project progresses. Their on-site experience is something we as architects can benefit from, because often how something is drawn on paper isn’t always erected on site the way you might think it would be. What is the old saying, there are many roads that lead to Rome, the same can be said for architectural projects - if there is a better, quicker, and more efficient way to achieve something then we would be remiss as a profession to ignore their expertise and site experience.

In our office, we do our best to present to the most suitable builder(s) for the project based on their experience, capability, size and references from previous clients and other architects who have used them in the past (and consider builders we have used recently as well) - we want to find builders that are interested and are a good fit for the project. Having the right builder for the job is paramount.  

We always recommend to our clients for each design stage to get an independent cost plan prepared by a Quantity Surveyor (QS) so we can have some information on what the project is likely be worth come tender time. This helps us make decisions on where some savings could be made, or even where we can afford to spend a bit more if desired. However, the request to have a builder involved early on is largely motivated from wanting to remove the fees to pay for a QS, which is understandable - a builder is the one who actually does the yakka - they know what it’s like to be on site, getting on and making great projects and this experience influences the way they price their works.

If you are looking to do this, and don’t want to engage with a QS, I’ve got a few things to say about this.

Time is our currency

By asking a builder to provide costing / buildability advice (and for it to be any good), this takes time. Time is valuable, and their time shouldn’t be taken for granted just because they want the job.

If you are wanting to work with this builder, and ask them to be involved throughout the design and documentation process, then I believe you need to give them a firm commitment that they are the builder for the job. I think this is not an unreasonable thing to ask for if they are going to be effectively working for free until they have a signed contract for the works.

But if that doesn’t suit you, to avoid any sense of conflict of interest or perceived unfair advantages, here are the ways I think their involvement is best handled...

1) Engage the preferred builder early on in the project (ideally paid for their time) but use an independent Quantity Surveyor to benchmark any estimates of cost.

2) Engage a builder early on in the project similar to above, but then put the project out to a Select Competitive Tender to a group of builders not previously involved in the project only.

The concern here is really about removing any sense of unfair advantage - if you say did have your preferred builder working on the project giving you their costing / buildability input, then all of a sudden decided that you want to test the market AND invite them to tender as well, I would say the other tenderers would feel grossly aggrieved by this - it’s a waste of their time to even compete when the preferred builder was likely to win the job anyways. Not to mention all that goodwill wasted with your original preferred builder. I think in this case having your cake, and eating it too isn’t really fair. This also can cause reputational damage (to both you, and your architect), which would be best avoided.

If you are interested in making your project the best it could be, and would like to develop a long term relationship with a builder interested in producing bespoke architectural projects, then there is no reason why you shouldn’t have a builder involved early in the project. But I think their time should be respected so that you can enjoy this privilege.

Redmond Hamlett is a Director (Project Architect) at WHDA. You can get in touch with him on 03 7020 5784.