One contract. What changes when the designer and the builder are the same team.

The usual arrangement.

Most homes are built by four companies. An architect. An interior designer. A contractor. A project manager. Four contracts, four sets of drawings, four diaries. When something goes wrong, the first question is whose fault it is. The second is who pays. The home waits while they argue. Each of the four is doing its job. The gaps between them are where the money goes.

NU Projects has worked the other way since 2010. One team. One contract. Here is what changes.

Accountability.

One contract means one name on the problem. If the drawing was wrong, that is us. If the build was wrong, that is us. If the drawing and the build disagree, there is no email chain. The designer and the site team share an office. They sort it out.

You have one number to call. It is answered by someone who can decide.

Changes.

Every home changes during the build. That is not a failure. It is what happens when you see a room at full size. The question is what a change costs you, in time and in money.

In the usual arrangement a change travels a long way. Designer, drawing, contractor, price, client, and back again. Weeks pass. With one team, the designer and the quantity surveyor sit together. You get a priced change, with a drawing, before you say yes. Nothing is built until you have seen the cost and the effect on programme.

A change is priced the same way the contract was, from a drawing. You see what it adds, what it saves, and how it moves the date. Then you decide, and not before.

“If the drawing was wrong, that is us. If the build was wrong, that is us.”

Programme.

There is one programme. The design programme and the build programme are the same document. Joinery is drawn when the site will need it, not when a diary allows. In London, Cochrane Bespoke make our kitchens and joinery. They are in the programme from the start.

Every week you get a report, with photographs. What was done, what is next, what needs a decision from you. You never have to ask how it is going. Nothing is discovered at the end.

The handover pack.

At the end you get a pack, not a pile. The drawings as built. The manuals and the warranties. A note of what is where. A plumber in five years can find the valve. One team prepares it, because one team has all of it. Nothing you need is in someone else’s filing cabinet.

The defects period.

After handover we stay. There is a defects period. The team that built the home is the team that returns. No debate about whether a crack is a design fault or a build fault. It is our fault, and we fix it.

In Dubai.

The same team, under one contract, from the first concept to the last defect. That is how NU Projects has built in London for over sixteen years. It is the only way we know.