May 22, 2018

Alright! Welcome to the fifth installment of the design build show. I’m here with Mr. Nick Schiffer, NS Builders. Awesome, thanks for being here!

Yeah, thank you for having me.

We’re here at Post 390, a great restaurant in Boston.

Just had a delicious dinner.

Had a great conversation- we should have been videoing the whole thing, we would have been able to go home and you guys could’ve just watched that.

So Nick’s been in business for 4 years- he has an incredible following. He does things differently.

Little bit.

And it’s good, I mean we were just talking about how this industry needs to change.

I mean, the whole preference behind – we chatted obviously earlier – really in the beginning, it was building a brand and a culture that people were attracted to. And not just from a client standpoint, but from a subcontractor, from employees, from other professionals. I wanted to build something a little bit different where we worked in a team effort no matter what- subs, our employees… everyone came to work for the same reason because they really, really enjoyed what they did. And if I could give them the opporutunity to showcase their craftsmanship and the effort that they wanted to put into it, and promote that through social media- I was going to take advantage of that.

Awesome. Now your tagline is Design, Build, Repeat. But when I asked you, you know you asked me what I called myself and I said a Design Builder, I asked you what you called yourself and you said a BUilder.

A builder. And that’s your background, right?

Yeah. Finish carpenter by trade, and for the last 20 months or so I’ve really removed myself from the field and let the guys I’ve hired… so about 20 months ago it was just myself and one other, and then over the course of, again, the last 20 months we’ve hired now 8 as of today. I’ve removed myself from the field because, number one, I’m focusing on growing my brand and the business. But also, allowing the guys to learn, but also mess up and kind of teach that way. And learn that it’s alright to mess up. But yes, my background is: I’m a builder, I’m a finish carpenter, I consider myself a builder now because I’ve stepped out of that just strictly carpenter role.

Before it was a carpenter?

Yeah, definitely a carpenter. And there’s days I miss it. Everyone’s always like, “What’s your five year goal, or ten year goal?”, and I think my goal would be to wake up, and decide whether I want to put the belt back on, or be a builder. You know? And just have that flexibility. I always say, like Tom Silva. He wakes up on This Old House, and he decides whether he’s going to boss people around, or he’s gonna put the belt on and help. And I like that. There’s times- every once in a while I get the opportunity to jump in the shop with the guys or in the field, but you know the next day I wake up and I’m like, “I didn’t get anything done yesterday”. It’s like I got a thousand emails…

I understand! That’s good you have skills in that area, I’d be like, “Oh man, I just messed up this whole job!”

“My guys are gonna have to spend the next three days fixing this..”
Yeah, yeah.

So where does design build come in to play?

To be totally honest, I think the “Design, Build, Repeat” came into play with more of… It was more part of the branding. I was trying to build something that was more recognizable, and from a branding side of things, when someone asks a question, it really drives them to think about something. So the “design, build, repeat” to many it’s silly, sometimes they think it’s stupid..and they always ask like, well they get the design build part, but why repeat? And that- when they ask that question- that’s enough for me, like, you’ve already thought about this? So that is already engraved, you’ve already given this enough thought that that’s gonna stick with you. But to play on that.. So I’d say that it’s branding first, but to really dig into it, you know, for us we’re not a design build firm technically. Technically we don’t have an architect on staff, but we like to be involved as early as possible in the process as possible. So, whether we- sometimes we’ll hire an architect as say a sub, and we’llhold it under our umbrella. Or we’ll work with an architect that the client is aleady working with. But, us being involved early on in the process allows us to help develop a budget, and help develop a realistic budget as the design unfolds. As you know, a design can get all the way to the end only to be budgeted to something that is not obtainable.

And nowadays, the architect, traditionally nowadays, is not held accountable for the budget. It’s not in their rolodex. It’s not in their wheelhouse for what they’re responsible for. We were talking about- for me design-build is all about accountability. So it seems like it’s almost like a natural progression for you, and your whole- and I just see that in a lot of what you’re talking about.

It’s not- I’m not avoiding having an architect on staff by any means, I just think, you know, I’m a carpenter and now a builder. I don’t know how to necessarily hire an architect, right? I’ve worked with great architects, I’ve worked with successful architects, and I’ve worked with not great architects. But I know who I jive with- so I think, going back to the whole culture of the business, everyone I hire is very much like this. We sit, have coffee, have a beer, and we’ll chat, and if I like you? Realistically you’re probably going to start work tomorrow. And because we can work together and there’s a good culture, the level of technical skill that you have might vary, and it might not meet the necessary criteria as an apprentice, or a carpenter, or a lead. But I know that you’re passionate, and you’re in it for the culture and the right reason. I can teach that side of it: I can teach the technical side. So I think, I think you’re right in the sense that it could be a natural progression for us, we’ve just been successful with the approach we’ve had now. Where we have the opportunity to work with different architects for different projects, and really allow… certain architects are good at traditional, certain architects are good at modern. I think my guys are skilled enough where they can sway back and forth. We tend to do a lot of the modern things because it takes a lot of effort to make it look good. Modern, everyone’s always like, “There’s no base, there’s no trim”.

Yeah I know what you mean- you can tell something’s not plumb in a modern home, right? Yeah.

There’s a lot of thought behind it. Stuff has to line up. If that ceiling isn’t flat? Everyone’s gonna know it’s not flat. Traditional? That’s okay if it’s not flat. The molding might cover it, or maybe it just looks like an old home. I’m not downplaying either, I really like tradtional, and I really like modern.

Cool. So I’m writing a book right now. I think it’s going to be called The Architect Rebuilt. Or Building the Architect. And I’m studying a lot of the history of the architect. The architect is Greek, the word is Greek for Master-Builder. Traditionally you started off as an apprentice. Then, there was a lot of stone building, so tradionally you’d be a stone mason, and then like, the pinnacle there was like, “You are now the Master-Builder, you are now the Architect”. So, when I say it’s a progression, I’m thinking, I think you might be headed in that direction! But we’ll see, we’ll see.

Yeah, I mean. I think design has a lot to do with it. I actually thoroughly enjoy the design. I really like thinking about- even in the rough framing when we’re framing soffits- I’m sitting there imagining how light is coming through a window, and you know, is that shadow line going to be screwed up looking. Or, if that soffit’s on this side of the room should we turn it into a tray ceiling? Or, you know, I ‘m thiking… rather than the technical like, “we need a soffit because there’s ductwork”, it’s like, “Yeah, I get the ductwork needs to be there, but how do we turn that soffit into something that looks like we thought about it?”. And that’s where, you know, a lot of my guys really look to me when we’re dealing with that side of rough construction and I’m watching them progress into thinking that way. Which is awesome. Because I show up on site and I’m looking at a soffit that has nothing in it, I’m like, “What’s that for?”. And they’re like, “Oh, well we have one across here, so when it’s sheetrocked it’s gonna look balanced.”

Sure, yeah. And that is design, right? And the earlier that can be thought with, I think, the better, right? Then, not necessarily having to have that conversation on site but earlier in the design process.

And the accountability is there too, as the builder I could have just framed the soffit and said, “Well, the architect didn’t draw a soffit over there.” Instead, we’ll take the approach of you know, let’s make this a triangle. Homeowner, architect, builder. And it shouldn’t be just two people, it has to be all three. Before anything gets to the homeowner, lets talk amongst the builder and the architect- “These are my thoughts”.

yes. The premise of the book really, is like design-build is a mentality, and it’s all about accountability. The best architects I know, the best buiders I know, they look outside of their own sphere, and look to create a great project. A lot of the things you’ve been talking about, you didn’t just start to… you know, you started thinking about everybody involved, the people that worked with you, the clients.

Right. And that, I mean, there’s a hashtag on instagram that we use on instagram a lot is collaboration over competition- Tom Silva actually mentioned it on our podcast. But it is, when you’re collaborating rather than competing… even though the architect may run the job or have a contract with the client, you guys could be competeing and butting heads the whole way- like, “The architect didn’t draw it” or “the builder should have known that..”. Instead, you collaborate on it and at the end of it the client is so- they’re not micromanaging. There is no immaturatity, in my opinion, where it’s he said, she said. And at the end of the day the product comes out so much better, because two people were thinking together every step of the way-

-taking responsibility for the whole project-

-exactly. Not leaning on or pushing the responsiblity somewhere else where something went wrong. Even in the worst situations my guys have come back like, “Oh, it wasn’t drawn…”. I’m like, “I know it wasn’t drawn. I’m not blaming you for missing it, we need to think about this stuff. Lets go back to the designer or the architect, and lets just chat.” And it’s like, ‘Well, who’s paying for it?”. And it’s like, “We’ll figure that out. That’s not important. The important thing is that the client gets what they are expecting. And what they’re expecting is a professional builder and a professional architect to work together-”

See, you’re very uncommon. Because you’re, as a builder, architect, separate, it’s set up almost adversarial. As a design-build firm, that’s why I like to have it all in house because we can control it. We can really be responsible for it. That’s amazing to me, just that viewpoint. You know, if everybody had that viewpoint it’d be different.

We’d live in a totally different world.

Yeah, but even like, you look at it how it’s set up. It’s set up to be adversarial. And I was going to ask you that question: How do you counter that, or how do you get around that? And you just do, huh?

Yeah? I mean, we can even bring it down… Forget the architect for a second. Even a plumber. The plumber shows up and he plumbs the house, and there’s an LVL in the way. The first thing he’s gonna do is blame the framer. Or, you know, the electrician.

But what would a great plumber do?

He’s gonna call and be like, “Lets work through this”. And before he even calls, offer a solution. And that’s one thing- I will not call an architect with a problem. I’ll call an architect with a solution. I honestly don’t understand why people don’t do that, because you’re wasting so much time. the fact that, If I pick up the phone and say, ‘Hey, the LVLs in the wrong spot, call me with a solution”, I’m wasting a day. Minimum. Where it’s like, “Hey, the LVL is in the wrong spot, but if we do this, and we do that, this could work. Are you okay with that?”. That’s just second nature. I’ve never even considered the other option. Where, you know, the same thing- the plumber or hte electrician. If there’s an issue, don’t call me with a problem, don’t e-mail me with a problem, or don’t tell me you’re walking off the job… Call me and offer a solution. And if you’re going to offer a solution, maybe I have to put a carpenter back on the job for a day to fix something we screwed up. I’m way more willing to do that if you call and offer a solution than if you call and say, “There’s an issue, you need to fix it”. Then I’m just gonna be mad at you for acting like a child. Yeah, the carpenter is still going to be on site, but then we’re going to probably fix it to the exact way we think it needs to be done, only not to know whether or not that’s helpful to you or not. So I think approaching problems with a solution, whether that solution is right or wrong, at least thinking in that mindset will train you to have less issues on a job.

Yeah, sure. How about pre-construction? We’re talking about a scenario -and I think it’s great, the analogy with the subcontractor does just break it down so clearly how it’s not just… how it’s collaboration not competition throughout the whole facet of a project. That’s really what makes a successful project. But what about pre-design? How do you- you say you’re not a design-build firm but when we’re talking, you are really getting-

We operate that way

-you’re trying to get ahead of it. So how do you do that?

So I mean, a lot of times we’ll get a call and say, “Hey, listen, we’re working with an architect, we’d like to shop builders, and…” and I usually pause the conversation. I say, “listen, before we even talk about price, or if we can do the job, or obviously if our schedule jives, if a rough budget jives, or maybe you don’t have a budget… First we need to make sure that we like eachother”. It starts with the personality. We sit down, we meet in person, we get through the whole, “can we fit into our schedule, does it work within our budget, is it a typical scope that we would handle,” but from a PreConstruction side, what we do is we operate from a retainer. So early on in the design, we’ll try to get involved as early as possible. It could be a napkin sketch, for all that matters. You know, we wanna- you like me, I like you, lets sign a retainer. What that retainer is gonna do is it will allow us to have billable time applied to that retainer and we’ll work through that napkin sketch. And say, yeah, based on that napkin, we’re probably in the range of 2-300 thousand for this renovation. “Allright, well I was thinking we were gonna be somewhere around 250 so we’re in the same ballpark. Great. Lets take this a step further. Lets do our preliminary drawings”. And as those preliminary drawings are developed, we’re basically billing time, but also offering our time to watch that design progress and offer history experiences like, “Alright, we’ve done that before, and that’s gonna drive our cost up”. Or, “Why don’t we do this instead of that, because we will be able to save money there”. So by the time that preliminary set is done, now we’re maybe saying, “Hey, this is going to be 225-270”. Now we’re even tighter on the budget. Alright cool, lets get to a design set. Now we have selections being started, being chosen. Now we start bidding out the tile selections and furnishings, and finishes and stuff like that. Now we get to the point where we almost have everything we need to sign a contract. And you know, full transparency on our end, if we get to that point? You have a design that you can almost build off of at this point. You have a budget that you can basically say, “I know how much this project is going to cost”. Maybe at this point we don’t like eachother anymore. We can cut ties. We’re covered because we’re billing our time in PreConstruction.

But they have a product there, right?

They have a product.

Either way, if you did that for them, they’d probably be very endeared. They always want you to do the work at that point, right?

Realistically if you’re at that point with the client, why would they not?

And you too! You set up the project to be successful.

What that retainer is allowing us to do is just that- we’re covering our cost to put in the effort to meet with our subs. To sit down, maybe walk the project and get hard numbers, so yes. We’re offering a product at the end of that service.

But shouldn’t you just be doing that for free?

Well, this is the most common comment that I get is people say, “Well, why don’t more people do this?” And I honestly believe that people are afraid to charge for that.

It’s set up this way, this adversarial-

-a free estimate’s fine-

-it doesn’t make sense. Whereas that’s half the value the client’s getting in the design process. Otherwise they can get to the end of the design process, have beautiful drawings to hang up on their wall, and not be able to build it. How often has that happened to you where you get a set of drawings where it’s twice, three times, what the client wanted to spend.

Absolutely. It’s like, “Hey, we’re in Construction Drawings, can you bid this?” Sure. You’re a million bucks. “Oh, well we were hoping to be like 500”. Well, that’s not what you have drawn.

And so you go back.

Right. And that is exactly why people hire a design-build firm. They want to be able to design and budget a project within their specs so that they have something tangible at the end of it.

So to not hire a design-build firm, you have to almost, like, not care what it costs? Is that what you’re saying?

Well, depends on the builder. We’re not a design-build firm. That’s why I promote us in the sense that, lets get involved as early as possible.

No, I’m trying to joke. But I do, like..

Yeah, but you’re right.

Yeah, I am. To whatever extend.

It’s like, yeah, we’re going to design something all the way to the end. Alright we have everything picked out. And yeah, if you’re at that point, I’m not going to say money can’t be a concern, but you either have to have a really good understanding of what stuff costs, or the budget isn’t as important-

Or you had a great architect who knows their limitations, who knows.. who really wants to design something that’s built, so they’re gonna bring you in. They’re going to make sure that they’re taking the steps properly. Because architects, I fid, they don’t build. So that’s the role you’re filling. It’s like “Hey, this is more buildable for the same cost”, or “That’s gonna be outside your budget range”, so it’s like, it’s helpful to have that information. You can’t really make a decision without that information and not have to come back to it, right?

Right. I mean, at the end of the day you’re not only wasting time but you’re also wasting money, because if you get to that point with an architect, you’ve invested thousands of dollars to get to a design that you find out you can’t build. You cannot physically afford to build that project. And now they don’t have any… they’re like, “Oh, we designed what you said. This is what you asked”.

And I’ve spoken to builders who play that game, and it’s like they’re in cahoots with the architect. It’s almost like change orders are… I’ve heard them say, you know.

It’s how they make their money.

They’re making the architect more money too.

That’s frustrating to me, because… The longer I’m in business and the more I do this, the more transparent I try to be. Which has bitten me in the ass, but it’s also been really great. With the clients that want to work with us, it’s great. And you know, we don’t… I don’t want to write change orders. It’s just more work. We’ve priced jobs where the client will say, “Hey, this is our budget”. Alright. I priced the job off a pricing set, I meet with the architect, and we’re one and a half times their budget. And they’re like, “Alright, lets reduce this, this, and this..” Now we’re at like 40% over their budget. And I get to a point where, you know.. I remember one specific one where I was like, “Alright. I’m over, we’re not going to be able to do the job.” And we went through line item by line item in our proposal. And this is something that we got a PreConstruction Agreement with, we had a retainer, I’m being paid to put this proposal together to be accurate. And the client went through, and they’re like, “Nah, everything’s covered. I figured we were going to be 40% over. Everything’s here, so why not just proceed off of this? This is what I really thought it was going to cost.” And that happens a lot. On all sze projects. A lot of people are going to give you a budget number, knowing in their mind, ‘Alright, I know it’s gonna cost 140, but I’m going to tell them 100 because that way it gives me 40% contingency”. Depending on what stage we’re pricing the project, I’m going to throw a contingency in immediately, and I’m going to sit down with the client, and say, “Before you look at the bottom number, we have 10% contingency in that cost. So that’s just money that we don’t know if you’re gonna spend or not, so just take that out and just plan on having that ten thousand dollars in a piggy bank somewhere if we run into something, or because you haven’t fully designed it, or maybe are we doing a steam shower? Anything.” I’m going in a little bit of a circle here, but that’s why being involved early on we help develop that process. And being able to charge for that in a PreConstruction agreement, taking a retainer, and being accurate with your proposal. Because if someone calls and they want a free estimate? Sure, alright. This is the drawing. You’re probably I dunno, 4-6 hundred thousand. “Well that doesn’t help me.” You asked for a free estimate. That’s as free as I can get.

I told you- when we interview designers, I always have them bring a set, so I can spend 15 minutes. And I always am just looking for things I don’t understand, but I’m always amazed.. I’m like, “Somebody went through this 50 sheets.. if I were to do that, and then I have all these questions, if I were to get my questions answered and properly get them answered… that’s a week!”

Who’s paying for that?

Yeah, it’s incredible. That’s why the system is a little broken there, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense. I think we’re similar in that we’d rather be up front with people. Keep things simple too. I’m not so smart that I can start to like…

Well we talked about that, the reputation that the industry has, right? There’s… I hate the word, to use the word sneaky, but there’s that level of discreetness to the industry like, “Well what’s his markup?” or “What’s his fee” or “What’s that”, or “Oh, he buys his plumbing fixtures for…”

And we talked about also how, whenever those numbers are presented….I’ve had, you’ve probably had this question when you go to a vendor: “What do you want me to show the client?”

Yeah! Or I’ll get the email like, “Hey this is your price, but here’s the invoice with their price”.

It’s great to be..like get around…

For what?

Yeah, it complicates it.

So when they walk into the showroom, and the salesman/sales lady is like, “Yeah, you know what, I’ll give you the Builder’s discount” and then they come back and they’re like, ‘Hey, we got a Builder’s discount…”. I’ve been in that position before. We used to just blanket markup everything. I’d call, and be like, “So you just sent me an invoice for 40% more to show the client, the client came in the store and decided to purchase it themselves and then got 40% off list. You were trying to set up where we were gong to make more money-”

Instead, you just created a problem.

Yeah. Instead, I’m just going to be transparent: “This is what we pay, here’s what you’d pay us to do the job. If you don’t want us to do the job, these are all the numbers you need to do the job, manage it yourself”.

I’d really like to make a change in that department. It would just simply things tremendously for people.

Right. Yeah, it’s really the transparency. And to speak to social media, for us, that’s really what we decided that, or I decided, in promoting the business and the culture that we have is that: let’s just be transparent and own our mistakes, own the process. We’re not perfect- when someone calls us out on something…. I post a picture with a grout line that’s screwed up, I know I’m getting called out. And I’ll just wait. And I’ll wait for that one guy that’s like, “Yeah that looks great, your grout sucks”. It’s like alright, cool man. I appreciate your feedback, lets me a little more… you know. Bring something more to the table. But we’ll talk about it in that we’re not perfect, but explaining the process and being open about it rather than trying to hide and be…

Oh man, it’s like invigorating. It makes you feel good. When you’ve made a mistake- and everybody makes mistakes, nobody’s perfect. So just owning that. We got a letter this week from a client who was selling a house. We put a condenser in a location that was complained about by a neighbor that was not within a setback. We moved it.. .we had to do a whole… it was not… we learned a lesson that one, right? But they were so appreciative, man. They had moved, and it just made us feel good, right?

And you know, that speaks volumes. The fact that you went and corrected it. So many people would have been like “It’s not my problem”.

And when you have a separate architect, and you have a separate builder-

“Architect told me to put it there.”

You get this. So just having the mentality like you do for the client eliminates that. And even you know, you could hire a design-build firm, they could still get around it, so it’s really…

Oh of course. “Yeah, we told you i the beginning that the condenser was going to be there and that it was going to be this loud and you said okay. It says it right here in the contract”. But what would that do? That client will never refer you.

I agree. And even at the end of the day when we talk about transparency, what really is being transparent. You can show the client whatever the client wants to see, so it’s really like, for me it’s really just the client, from the client’s point of view, they’ve got to have like a gut feeling. They’ve got to feel comfortable with this.

They have to trust you.

With you, being transparent, you’re just showing people what you do all the time on social media. It aligns with that, right? So you’re building that truts just in doing what you’re doing.

Everyone wants to know, “Well, what’s too much transparency”. You can decipher that any way that you want- some clients don’t wnat to see the breakdown. Some clients just don’t. You have to cater your transparent approach to the clientelle that you want to work for. If you want to only work for clients that don’t want to see- they just want- give me a check. Give me a bill.

That’s great. The client really wants to know they’re getting a fair price, they don’t want to be over paying. If a client doesn’t remodel every day, they look at a line item… what context are they evaluating with? It’s not super helpful for them.

Alright, plumbing is this. This is the number for plumbing. And this is the number for electrical. It doesn’t need to be line by line, like every single line for us. Just, they want to understand but you’re right. There is a level of trust both ways. I think that goes back to our initial consult, it’s like, we’re gonna sit down like this. And you’re gonna get to know me, and I’m gonna get to know you, and then we’re gonna walk away and we’re gonna say, “Were there any red flags? Is that client going to be an issue? Or is that builder going to be an issue for me?”. We wanna make sure we like eachother. We’re in your life for a good part of the year, maybe more. If we think we might not like eachother, that’s probably a really good time to not go on a second date. And if we think hey, we’re going to like eachother, then there’s a level of trust. You trust me to do a particular job, I trust you to pay. We work, you pay. We work, you pay. That’s the relationship. Depending on how transparent that approach is, or how that service is, will dictate how that relationship sways throughout the procgress.

Awesome, just jumping off a little bit- one of the things I love about design build is the loop. YOu’re designing it, you’re building it, when you’re building it you’re getting that feedback right then and there. And then when the project is done maybe there’s warranty things, and you can always feed that back into the design and make it better the next time. Do you have any examples on that? I’m feeding you on the concrete floor, and how that changed things going forward for you. Obviously you never made that mistake again.

I did not.

But just that loop.

There is, especially because we talk about it. I’m going to answer this a little bit in a couple directions. When there is a mistake, rather than hiding it or not talking about it our trying to get around it and not fix it, instead I almost make a little bit too much of a big deal about it. It’s like, “Hey guys! Come here! We messed this up. Lets talk about it, lets over-talk about it, and lets figure out how we fix it. Well, this is what we need to do, it’s gonna cost this much money…”. The money portion I get. At the end of the day we need to make sure the product is right for the client. That client will refer us based on our performance. If our performance is poor, we don’t get referred. We make the mistake, and I’ll talk about it, and we’ll sit down, and we’ll make sure that it’s known that the whole team knows the mistake that we made, the client probably knows at this point because I probably posted a picture about it, and we’ll talk about it real quick. This is what it took to fix. Now what that is doing is that the client sees it, respects our transparency. The team sees it, they see that alright hey- remember that time when we put the wall faucet too high and Nick ripped all the tile off the wall and made us move it? Yeah, lets not do that again. Lets make sure that when we’re putting a wall faucet, we call Nick, and the lead, and the designer, to make sure that we know the height. Or get a drawing for it.

So everybody’s learning from it.

Rather than, I could have just went in, secretively ripped the tile off the wall, moved the faucet down, put the tile back and noone would have known about it. And it would have happened again! Instead, lets really really learn from the mistake. And I think that goes with the warranty- you’re avoiding a warranty issue. Maybe we installed the faucet and forgot the washer, and then the thing leaks. It’s a warranty issue, lets talk about that. Why did we forget about the washer? What was the reason? Did it not come with it? Did the plumber forget about it? Just making mistakes more known and humanizing us as builders, architects, and people… Humanizing that portion of it will, I think, entail really elevate the respect of the trades as we’re not trying to sweep anything under the rug anymore.

Yeah, I agree man. that’s awesome. Well, thank you very much for being on this show- you’ve inspired me!

Likewise! I can’t wait to read the book.

Yeah, it’s gonna change the world. I really do believe that. In the next 5 to 10 years you’re going to see Universities, the way that architects are trained, change. Because it really should be like.. You should have the architect or the person who is gonna be fully in charge of the whole process know how to do the whole process.

Agreed. I think especially with technology now, there’s so much less that we can hide, that everyone really needs to collaborate. And design-build is a perfect example of that. You know, the collaboration is the only way… not the only way, but collaboration will make success easier for all parties including the client.

Awesome. Thank you Nick!

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Published May 22, 2018 | By