an unworkable idea

Clients spend money on architects draw pictures and select products. Clients spend money on contractors who organize the labor and materials that create buildings based on the decisions of the architects. Efforts at finding more efficiency in these arrangements has attracted the attention of economists and business leaders for quite some time. One obstacle to efficiency is that both architects and contractors will claim to have a grasp of the complexity involved in the undertaking, no matter how original it may be. Both groups are beholden to a labor and material market over which they have no control. One possible approach would be for a contractor to establish a true design-build operation where design services are combined with in-house trades who can give more accurate feedback on pricing as the design is being developed. Until this happens, the guesswork continues.