How Poor Design Coordination Costs You More Than You Think

There is a persistent misconception in the construction industry that design coordination is a soft cost — something you trim when the budget gets tight. The reality is almost always the opposite. Poor design coordination is one of the most expensive problems a project can have, and its costs are rarely visible until they are unavoidable.

Let us be specific about what poor coordination actually produces.

The first cost is variations. When structural drawings do not align with architectural drawings, or when a mechanical system clashes with a structural element, the builder has to stop, raise an RFI, wait for a response, and then often redo work that has already been completed. Each of those events costs time and money. Variations that originate from unresolved design clashes are almost never priced in favour of the client. The builder has leverage, the programme is disrupted, and the client pays — usually significantly more than the proactive coordination would have cost.

The second cost is programme delay. Construction moves fast. When the design information feeding the site is incomplete, inconsistent, or late, the builder cannot maintain their programme. Delay claims follow. In most commercial and residential contracts, delay costs compound quickly — preliminaries, extended overheads, subcontractor re-scheduling, and in some cases liquidated damages run in the other direction. The design team is rarely held directly accountable for these costs, but the client feels every dollar.

The third cost is quality erosion. When design decisions are made under time pressure on site rather than resolved properly beforehand, the outcomes are rarely ideal. Materials get substituted. Details get simplified. Finishes that were central to the design vision get value-engineered out at the last moment because there was no time or budget to get them right. The client ends up with a building that looks almost like what they intended, but not quite — and that gap represents the loss of what the project was supposed to deliver.

The fourth cost is professional relationships. A project that runs poorly under coordination pressure will generate disputes, claims, and blame. These dynamics damage the relationships between all parties and make future collaboration harder. For developers and builders who rely on repeat relationships with consultants, this is a real commercial cost that extends well beyond a single project.

Good design management prevents all of these outcomes — not by adding bureaucracy, but by ensuring that the right conversations happen at the right time, that clashes are identified and resolved before they reach the site, that the documentation feeding construction is complete and coordinated, and that the people making decisions on site have the information they need to make them well.

The cost of a design manager is predictable and contained. The cost of not having one is unpredictable and open-ended. The numbers consistently favour investment in coordination.

In a properly managed project, variations are reduced, the programme is protected, quality is maintained, and relationships hold. These are not abstract benefits — they are directly measurable commercial outcomes.

For any project of scale, the question is not whether you can afford design management. It is whether you can afford to go without it.

Emanuel Solomovic is a registered architect in NSW ARB Reg. No. 7154 / DEP Design Practitioner No. 1771.