The remedies discussed for a design-builder who doesn’t meet performance requirements are focused on compensation or correcting the work, not forcing bespoke performance through a court order. Actual damages cover the owner’s losses caused by the failure. Liquidated damages are pre-agreed amounts the contractor must pay if performance falls short or milestones aren’t met, providing a predictable remedy without proving exact damages. Make good is the obligation to fix or replace defective work so the project ultimately meets the required performance standards. Specific performance—a court order directing the contractor to perform as contracted—is not one of the typical remedies in this context. In construction, forcing a party to complete design and construction can be impractical and time-consuming, and the contract usually anticipates monetary damages or a cure as adequate remedies.

When a contract is breached, direct damages cover the immediate financial impact tied to the breach (the cost to fix or complete the work). Consequential damages are losses that flow from the breach in a more indirect way, such as lost profits or rental income, if those losses were foreseeable at the time the contract was formed. Loss of rental income from tenants falls into the category of consequential damages because it represents the economic impact of the project not being usable as agreed, rather than the direct cost to cure the breach. It’s not incidental (those are costs incurred to handle the breach itself, like storage or shipping adjustments) and it’s not punitive (punitive damages are not typically recoverable in contract disputes).

The main idea being tested is how Best Practices are grouped to cover the whole design-build process: procurement, contracting, and execution. Procurement focuses on obtaining the right team and resources for the project. Contracting addresses the legal relationships, risk allocation, and contract structures that guide how the work will be done. Execution covers the actual delivery of the project—how design, construction, integration, and performance come together in practice. This three-part grouping reflects the full lifecycle from assembling inputs to delivering the final result. This set—Procurement, Contracting, Execution—fits best because it clearly separates the activities of obtaining resources, formalizing the work through agreements, and carrying out the project, ensuring coverage of both the governance and hands-on delivery aspects. Scheduling, while important, is about timing and sequencing rather than a broad category of Best Practices. Planning and Delivery are broader terms that don’t map as cleanly to the DBIA framework’s three organized areas. Implementation is similar in meaning to execution, but the commonly used DBIA terminology for this category is Execution, which is why it’s the precise match here.

In this arrangement, price certainty is achieved by splitting the project into two separate contracts: one for the design work and one for the construction work. This setup gives the owner clear, defined price baselines for each phase, helping to control the overall budget from the outset. Having a dedicated design contract fixes the scope and cost for design deliverables, so the owner knows what the design phase will cost. The construction contract then locks in the price for building the project based on that defined design, creating a second, separate price anchor. With costs defined in two places, changes and cost growth can be managed within the appropriate contract and tracked more predictably, reducing the risk that design changes will cause uncontrolled increases in the construction price. This separation also tends to ease change management. If a design change is required, it can be priced within the design contract; if a construction change is needed, it’s handled within the construction contract. The owner gains better visibility and control over each cost element, which enhances overall price certainty. Other approaches pool pricing into one agreement or rely primarily on guarantees or incentives to drive cost behavior. Those methods can blur cost drivers or depend on performance-based incentives, which may not provide the same straightforward, early visibility and control over both design and construction costs that a two-contract structure offers.