Unlike a traditional design-bid-build project, where the owner's engineer produces complete drawings before bidding, a design-build owner typically hires its own design criteria professional to prepare this package instead, covering things like site information, material quality standards, schematic layout, and budget and schedule parameters — the design-build team then completes the actual detailed design. Federal design-build procurement follows a similar two-phase structure: agencies issue a scope of work in Phase One to shortlist qualified teams, then request full technical and price proposals from that shortlist in Phase Two, evaluated by criteria disclosed in the solicitation. Because the design criteria package — not finished drawings — is what a design-build team is actually pricing against, cost and schedule certainty at bid time is inherently lower than on a design-bid-build project, which shifts more design risk (and reward, if managed well) onto the design-build team. Reading a design criteria package for scope, performance requirements, and budget parameters is a meaningfully different exercise than reading finished construction drawings, since much of what a contractor needs to price is described rather than drawn. Nonlinear reads both kinds of bid documents to extract the scope, requirements, and quantities that actually drive a pricing decision.
Knowledge Base
What is a design criteria package (in design-build procurement)?
A design criteria package is the performance-based set of requirements an owner issues at the start of a design-build procurement — describing what the project needs to achieve, not how to build it — so design-build teams can prepare a qualifications submission or a full proposal against it.
