What’s Included in a Design and Build Service? A New Zealand Guide

A design and build service covers the whole path to your new home under one agreement: the brief, concept design, developed design, building consent, construction, then handover and aftercare. One team carries it from first sketch to final key, rather than the work being split across separate contracts you coordinate yourself.

The value of that is simple. Nothing is left to fall between separate agreements, and no one can later argue about whether a problem belongs to the drawings or the build. At Ecotectural this sits behind an approach we call Around One Table: the right architect, an energy-literate engineer and, where it is useful, an energy consultant, brought together from the first concept. If you are new to the model, our plain-English explainer of what design and build means sets out how the single-team route works before you weigh up what a service should contain.

Yes. In a genuine design and build service the architect is part of the team, brought in from the first concept alongside the builder, so design and construction develop together. You are not left to engage an architect separately and then manage the gap between their drawings and the build.

Concept design and developed design are the core of the service. The concept establishes how the home sits on its site and how you will live in it; developed design details that into drawings a council and a builder can both read. How the architect is paid matters here. Architects working on hourly rates, rather than a percentage of the build cost, keep the design honest to your budget rather than growing with it. Because the builder is in the room, buildability and cost shape the design as it firms up, which tends to protect good design rather than compromise it, since the hard questions are solved on paper while changes are still cheap.

Usually yes, as coordinated work. The team prepares and lodges the building consent and organises the structural engineering, so you are not chasing the council or briefing an engineer yourself. What to check is which costs sit inside the price and which are billed at cost.

Building consent is where the plans are assessed against the NZ Building Code, the legal minimum every home in New Zealand must meet. Preparing that application and shepherding it through is part of the service, but the council’s own consent fees and development levies are commonly a disbursement you pay at cost rather than a marked-up line. Structural engineering is normally coordinated by the team, while a geotechnical report or specialist design for a difficult or sloping site can be an added scope. None of this is hidden when pricing is open-book, a promise we call Built in the Open, because you see the real cost of each piece rather than a single figure. Our guide on how a builder prices your plans shows how these lines are actually built up.

This is where scope varies most between builders. Groundworks and a landscape concept around the house are often included, fixed interior finishes are usually selected as part of the service, but full landscaping design, a full interior design service and loose furniture are commonly an added scope or excluded. The table below shows the usual pattern.

The pattern is a guide, not a rule, which is precisely why it should be itemised in your agreement rather than assumed.

The items most often outside a base scope are loose furniture, curtains and window treatments, established planting and ongoing garden maintenance, and some interior and landscaping design. None of that is a catch, provided it is written down. The thing to check is the scope itself, in writing, item by item, before you commit.

Two questions do most of the work. First, ask how the builder prices: open-book, with an openly agreed margin, or a single lump sum. A fixed price can look reassuring, but it is only as fixed as the drawings it is based on, and thin drawings lead to variations, so a lump sum is not the safe option it appears to be. Ecotectural prices open-book with the builder’s margin set at a flat 15 percent, agreed up front, and builds in a 10 percent contingency as a matter of course, on the plain logic that if you cannot afford the contingency, you cannot afford to build. Second, confirm credentials and responsibility: a Licensed Building Practitioner and a Registered Master Builder, and, where performance matters to you, familiarity with high-performance building and bodies such as PHINZ. Our checklist of the questions to ask a builder before you sign covers exactly what to confirm, and you can see the full scope we hold on our design and build page.

A design and build service should hold the whole journey under one team: brief, concept and developed design with the architect and engineer inside the team, building consent and engineering coordinated for you, construction, then handover and aftercare. Landscaping, interiors and furniture range from included to an added scope to excluded, so the deciding detail is a scope confirmed in writing before you commit.

Because you engage the builder early, who you build with is the decision that matters most. Ecotectural has designed and built architectural homes across Nelson Tasman since 2006, using Around One Table for the design and Built in the Open for transparent, open-book pricing, with scope agreed openly at the outset. If you are working out what your build should include, the best first step is to arrange a consultation before the design is locked in.