The choice you make before appointing anyone shapes cost certainty, programme and - when something goes wrong - who is responsible. Most clients make it by accident.
Before you appoint anyone, you make a decision that shapes everything after it: how you are going to buy the building.
Most clients make this decision without noticing they are making it. They engage an architect because that is what one does, and the procurement route follows from that. It is worth a few minutes of deliberate thought, because the route determines who carries the risk, how early you get a reliable price, and who is accountable when something does not work.
There are two main routes in Kenya, and a third that describes how the first can be run well.
Traditional procurement
Under the traditional route you appoint a design team first — architect, structural engineer, services engineer, quantity surveyor. They develop the design and produce tender documents. Contractors then bid to build that design, usually competitively, and the lowest compliant bid is generally appointed.
What it gives you:
- A designer who works for you. Your architect's duty is to you, not to the contractor's margin. On a project where design quality is the point, this is a real advantage.
- Competitive tendering. Several contractors price the same documented scope, which produces genuine price tension and a comparable set of bids.
- A documented basis for the contract. Because the design is complete before tender, what you are buying is written down.
What it costs you:
- Time. Design, then tender, then build. The programme is sequential, and design and construction do not overlap.
- A late price. You do not learn what the building actually costs until tenders return — by which point you have already spent on design.
- A gap in responsibility. This is the important one. If something does not work, the designer says it was built wrong and the contractor says it was drawn wrong. You are in the middle, arbitrating between two firms you are paying.
Design-build
Under design-build you appoint one firm to both design and construct. It carries responsibility for the design and for the works.
What it gives you:
- A single point of responsibility. There is no gap to fall into and nobody to point at. When something is wrong, one firm owns it.
- Overlap. Construction can begin on early packages while later design is still being resolved, compressing the overall programme.
- Buildability designed in. The people drawing the detail and the people building it are the same firm, so impractical details get resolved before they reach site rather than after.
- An earlier price. You can fix a price against a defined brief earlier than the traditional route allows.
What it costs you:
- Less design independence. The designer works for the contractor. Where the brief is loose, that can pull specification toward what is efficient to build rather than what is best to occupy.
- A brief that has to be good. Design-build transfers risk to the contractor, and the contractor prices what the brief says. A vague brief produces a building that satisfies the words and disappoints the intention.
- Harder like-for-like comparison. Competing design-build proposals differ in design as well as price, so you are comparing two different buildings rather than two prices for one.
Integrated Project Delivery
Integrated Project Delivery is not a third contract type so much as a description of how design-build is run when it is run properly: bringing major and specialist design skills into a single managed service, producing holistic concepts with consistent principles and coordinated solutions.
It is the model Primebuild practises, and its four stated benefits describe precisely the failure modes of split procurement:
Singular design team management. One team leads architecture, interior design, engineering and construction management, so direction does not fragment between consultants who have never met.
No responsibility gaps. Every discipline sits inside one contract. Nothing falls between a designer's scope and a contractor's scope.
Managed interfaces. The points where trades meet — the joints where programmes usually slip — are actively coordinated rather than left to be discovered on site.
One building information model. A single model carries the project from concept to handover, so clashes surface on screen instead of in concrete.
That last point is worth dwelling on. The expensive coordination failures in construction are not usually dramatic. They are a duct that needs to occupy the same space as a beam, discovered on the day the ceiling goes in. Finding it in a model costs an afternoon. Finding it on site costs a week and an argument.
Which route suits which project
Traditional procurement suits you if: design quality is the primary objective, you want an independent designer advising you throughout, you have time for a sequential programme, and the project is well-defined enough to be fully documented before tender.
Design-build suits you if: programme certainty matters, you want one accountable party, you can write a clear brief, and you would rather buy an outcome than manage a process.
Either can be run badly. The route is not a substitute for choosing a competent firm and writing down what you want.
The questions that decide it
- How clear is my brief? Vague brief, more design input needed — lean traditional, or invest properly in the brief before going design-build.
- How much does the programme matter? Financing cost or a fixed occupation date pushes toward design-build.
- How much do I want to manage? Traditional procurement puts you between two parties. Design-build does not.
- How unusual is the building? A bespoke, architecturally-led project rewards an independent designer. A functional building rewards buildability.
Where Primebuild fits
Primebuild Construction Limited works both ways.
As a general contractor, it builds to another design team's documents — its trades are directly employed and DIT grade-certified, and its supervision is its own.
As a design-build contractor, it carries a full-service architecture, interior design, engineering, construction management and project management team in-house, and practises Integrated Project Delivery so those disciplines sit inside one managed service.
The firm is registered by the National Construction Authority and by the Ministry of Water & Sanitation.
If you are deciding how to procure a project, call +254 705 555 760 — that conversation is usually more valuable before the design starts than after. Or request a quote.