Digging Into The Details - Transitioning To Design Development

Every renovation project is broken down into multiple phases: conceptual design, design development, construction documents, construction/execution, and project closure. If you haven’t worked with a design-build studio before you may be unsure what is entailed for each of these phases. We do things a bit differently than the traditional general contractor (read more about those differences here), and in this post we will discuss the design development phase. 

We left off the conceptual design phase with the conceptual design meeting (read about the process here). Now that we have your feedback on the overall design vision and the preliminary budget to achieve it, we start to dig into all of the details. This is where all of the finishes need to be researched and selected, and we have spreadsheet after spreadsheet of information that needs to be completed and compiled. 

​Completing this task is laborious, but also a must-have. By thinking through all the minute details and how they work together, any potential problems start to arise, allowing you the opportunity to problem solve and course correct.

​In the conceptual design phase we talked with our trade partners to get their feedback on the overall design vision. During design development we go into further discussions with them to ensure they don’t foresee any issues with the design selections we have in mind. Again, thinking through all of these details can help bring to light any potential issues.

We want to uncover potential issues now because the construction phase is hectic enough without having to make design decisions on the fly. These types of decisions almost always lead to more money and more time, so it’s best to thoroughly think things through prior to demolition.

​The design development phase ends with the design presentation where we share all of the finishes and fixtures we have selected to achieve your design vision. We personally include a rendering of the space as well so our clients can really see the space and what the final product will look like.

This is also when we go through our build proposal, laying out the investment needed to achieve the design vision, as well as the timeline for completion. Once everything is approved we move onto the construction documents phase (more on this soon…).
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Have any questions or comments regarding the design development phase? Just drop them below; we’d love to hear from you.

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