The research examines the contractual approach known as design-build, with particular reference to the use of the JCT 1981 Form of Contract, 'With Contractor's Design'. The study is broadly based and has as one of its main objectives the provision of information and insights of a fundamentally practical nature on the way that design-build is used and how it performs. The evolution of the building industry in the UK is traced, leading up to the present day. Literature is examined from government sponsored reports on the building industry in the UK, from trade and professional publications, with particular reference to design-build, and from systems theory, with particular reference to the building process. A wide ranging interview survey of current projects is carried out to discover how the form of contract is being used in practice. The forms of contract are compared and the way the forms are actually used in practice are also compared. Finally, a set of hypotheses are drawn up concerning how design-build may be expected to perform. These are then tested in a questionnaire survey of 14 design-build projects. Conclusions are then drawn on the way that design-build relates to the perceived problems of the traditional process and the extent to which the actual findings relate to what the published material and management theory would have suggested.