A guaranteed maximum price is a real protection and it is not magic. Here is what it actually covers, the four things that can still move it, and the questions worth asking before you sign one.
Three ways to deliver a building, explained for owners rather than for the industry. Who holds the risk, when you find out the real price, and which one actually fits a board, a bond, or a grant deadline.
Passing the bond was the hard part politically. Turning a ballot number into buildings is the hard part operationally. Here are the five decisions in the first ninety days that determine whether your district delivers what it promised.
What actually happens in the first three months, what you will be asked to decide, what you are not responsible for, and the three mistakes first-time owners make before anyone draws anything.
A school does not close for construction. Phasing around an occupied building is where district projects are won or lost, and almost none of it is decided on the job site.
The short answer is neither, if you can avoid it. Here is why the question exists at all, what it costs owners who guess wrong, and the third option most first-time owners are never told about.
You didn't set out to buy drawings. You set out to open a building, on time and on budget. Why the traditional design-bid-build model fails owners, and how single-source design-build with a guaranteed maximum price fixes it.
Bond campaigns are won long before the ballot language is written. What a credible facility master plan actually contains, and why condition data persuades voters that aspiration never will.
Michigan districts have three capital funding sources, and each one restricts what it can pay for differently. How to match scope to the right source, and where districts most often get this wrong.
Your next community facility may already be standing. How to tell whether an existing building is worth reusing, and how to price the risk of what you cannot see.
A natatorium is the hardest building most communities will ever put up. What drives cost, what drives longevity, and how to settle both before you break ground.
Framework E co-founders Pierre Roberson and Jerry Attia discuss their careers, current projects, and bringing more Black architects into the profession.