Construction
Our firm is uniquely positioned to operate as a design-forward General Contractor, providing pre-construction and building services for clients and architects seeking a more thoughtful, discerning builder.
We evaluate every assembly we install — looking for smarter, often simpler solutions, and bringing the same scrutiny to standard details that we apply to high-performance ones. Our team has twelve years of direct delivery experience built on top of two decades of design contribution, and we extend that judgment to every constructability decision. A stable network of vendors, tradespeople, and suppliers — most of whom we've worked with for years — keeps execution predictable.
Our Approach
Our Solutions
Reliable execution depends on transparent budgets, realistic sequencing, and clear responsibility — not optimistic schedules and fixed assumptions. Our GDB makerspace produces custom assemblies in-house, giving us tighter control over quality, tolerances, and lead times while reducing markups and uncertainty. Whether we're building from your architect's drawings or our own, we manage budget, schedule, and risk as a single coordinated discipline, calibrated to the resources actually available.
Frequently Asked Construction Questions
-
Yes. A significant share of our construction work originates this way. We respond to architect-led RFPs and are happy to participate in competitive selection alongside our negotiated work.
-
Constructability review, parallel-path cost modeling, assembly evaluation, supplier and trade outreach, schedule modeling, permit coordination, and value-aligned alternatives. We engage as early as schematic design and stay through to GMP or fixed-price contract execution.
-
We don't approach VE as price reduction. We approach it as integrated optimization — finding assemblies that satisfy the same performance and aesthetic goals at lower cost or risk. Where a typical contractor swaps materials to hit a number, we propose alternative detailing, sequencing, or sourcing that preserves the original design language. Trade-offs are presented as design choices with cost implications, not as line items to be cut.
-
Substantial. Our portfolio includes Passive House and net-positive-ready buildings, and we have established workflows for managing the air-sealing, thermal-bridge mitigation, and mechanical-coordination requirements those certifications demand. Our makerspace lets us prototype and fabricate envelope details that off-the-shelf trades aren't equipped for.
-
An in-house fabrication shop. It lets us produce custom millwork, envelope details, structural components, and other assemblies that would be costly or unreliable to outsource. The result is tighter tolerances, fewer middlemen, and shorter lead times on the items most likely to bottleneck a schedule — useful when a design calls for details outside the standard trade catalog.
-
Yes — selectively. We self-perform where it materially improves quality, schedule, or cost certainty, and we subcontract the rest to long-standing trade partners. We don't self-perform for the sake of it.
-
Roughly $400 to $1,200 per square foot, depending on scope, performance level, finishes, and site complexity.
-
RFIs are answered quickly because the same team has been through the assembly logic during pre-construction. Submittal turnaround is fast. Architects get straightforward access to the project team — site walks, shop drawing reviews, mockups — without filtering through multiple layers of project management.
-
Our home base is Greater Boston and most of our work is here, but we'll consider projects elsewhere when the scope justifies it. Reach out and we'll talk.
Explore our other services
INTERESTED IN WORKING TOGETHER?