Yeah, but I betcha those gold-plated toilet seats are way bitchin'!
I doubt design-build was the problem. The problem was the government was involved. What they need to do is hire a contractor for a set budget and then leave it up to the contractor to handle everything. The problem is this almost never happens. What they do is they hire a contrator and then start changing things and conditions and many times contrators low bid knowing they can get the gov to approve increases as new expenses arise. How often do you hear of building projects for private companies going over budget? The reason why we don't hear about it is because they have an incentive not to let it happen where with the government there is a reverse incentive to efficiency and it isn't just with building projects. I see it all the time at work.
Just recently it was decided to change a number for one of our operations. Who decided what no one knows but what also no one knows is why it was necessary at all. The beauty of it is that the core systems tracking the operation of the hundreds of locations, including the one that is having its id changed, is not equiped to accomodate the change because this kind of thing is not supposed to happen. So instead of just changing the number in the database like a sane person would and saving time and money it was decided that both the old id and the new would remain and all the reporting systems would be changed to make it look like only the new id existed rather than just retiring the old id to a historical database.
If you have never worked with databases or applications development then I forgive you if you don't understand the significance of this but in terms of money it is a waste of thousands of dollars and effort that would not only be a waste now but would guarantee that sometime in the future this same discontinuity will have to be taken into account and either fixed or more likely integrated into new systems which would forever have to do a special check for one little id for one little operation in the north atlantic until someone decides to close the little operation.
What is really amusing is how more often than not the government will change contractors several times and never realize that it was never the contractors that were the problem but instead the government managers who lack the competence to manage the contractors they have. So over the course of a project one contractor is dumped and another is brought on and essentially the same people are in charge. lol It is often like working at an idiot factory where it always seems that no one is responsible for anything but those who have no control over anything.
IMHO, anyone who contracts a construction job without plans and specs is going to have the contractors eat their lunch.