Method
Fixed price: how we get there and what can change it
We fix the price at the end of concept design. It isn't magic: the people pricing the job are the people who will build it.
The question we hear most at the first meeting is how much it will cost. The honest answer at that point is a range. Eight to ten weeks later, at the end of concept design, it is a number.
Why we can fix it so early
Because the estimate isn't produced by a third party from drawings they don't know. Our site manager builds it with the architects who draw, line by line, using prices from the trades we work with every week.
What can change it
Three things, and we put them in writing: changes you ask for after signing, hidden conditions in an existing building (which is why we open up first) and material price swings above an agreed threshold.
A fixed price isn't a promise: it's one more drawing, with the same level of detail as the rest.
Over the last five years, 61 of our 64 buildings finished within the signed price. The other three changed through client decisions during construction, documented and approved before being carried out.
