Design Review for General Contractors

Why General Contractors Need Design Review

Constructability, schedule, and resolving design conflicts before they become field RFIs or change orders is what General Contractors are on the hook for. And a recurring problem is inheriting design team coordination gaps as field problems, with the cost and schedule risk landing on the GC.

That's exactly where Design Review comes in. It runs during design development, before drawings are finalized, and the point of it is to catch issues early, while they're still cheap to fix, instead of after documents are further along.

What Structured AI Checks for General Contractors

For general contractors running design review, Structured AI uses Document Chat paired with Custom Checks, so the team can interrogate the drawing set as it evolves and run firm specific checks throughout design. Findings are scoped to what this role is actually on the hook for, not a generic error list, but issues organized around constructability, schedule, and resolving design conflicts before they become field RFIs or change orders.

Coordination failures missed in the office become RFIs in the field. At a documented rate of 9.9 per million dollars of contract value, they become part of the project's actual cost structure. Structured reviews drawing sets at preconstruction and surfaces scope gaps and coordination failures before mobilization.

Where This Fits in Your Workflow

Design Review for general contractors usually happens during design development, before drawings are finalized. Structured AI works on .pdf, .dwg, .rvt, and .ifc files, and for Revit modeled projects, the Revit Add-In runs the same checks directly against live geometry with element level results, no export needed. Findings can be exported and assigned by trade or discipline, so the review step slots into the existing document workflow instead of adding a new one.

FAQ

How is design review different from a general plan check? Design Review is scoped to what actually matters at this stage of the project and for this role: catch issues early, while they're still cheap to fix, instead of after documents are further along. It uses Structured AI's deterministic checks rather than a confidence-scored, probabilistic flag.

Do general contractors need special training to use this? No. Upload the relevant drawings and specifications, or connect the Revit model directly, and findings come back organized the way general contractors already review work. Teams can also build Custom Checks in plain English without writing any code.

Can findings be shared with the rest of the project team? Yes. Every finding links back to the exact sheet and location, and can be exported and assigned by trade or discipline for team wide visibility and follow up.