Design-Built

Construction as Design

We are committed to the details that we design into our projects and appreciate the opportunity to be fully involved in helping them physically come to life at a 1:1 scale. Our knowledge of contemporary construction practices and cutting edge fabrication technologies ensures that we design economically within the limitations of our budgets while appreciating materials and designing specific to the tools that are economically available within the field. For us, design is building and building is design, we feel strongly that at the residential scale the two have very little distinction.

Who We Are

Design-built’s team has come together around a common desire to create. We are designers, makers and managers who operate at varying scales and encounter a variety of challenges in our daily practice.

We believe in the value of connecting the threads of imagination and creativity to those of building and doing. This cycle, in it’s own way, acts as a continued education that has helped to unearth our core values. Values that are created by the healthy feedback loop that is the design-build process. A process that has steered our philosophies and intentions toward appropriate, honest and timeless solutions that pay respect to the materials that we have grown to love and the tools that we love to use.

We have a range of skillsets from designers that love to build, to competent builders and managers that have an appreciation for the details. Our team is made up of people who thrive in an environment where they are connected to all of the stages involved in bringing new ideas, solutions and spaces into reality.

About Clayton Salkeld 

Graduating from the University of Manitoba with a bachelors degree in Environmental Design, Clayton is the founder of design- built and has led its prolific rise through the residential design and construction industry, culminating in being named Architecture Designer of the Year by Western Living.”

About Caelan Chornoboy

Following his graduation from the Faculty of Architecture in 2020 at the hight of the Covid 19 pandemic, Caelan fell into place with Design-built as a builder, craftsperson, and architectural designer. Shortly after his start with the company he lead the design, construction, and management of a remote bunk house in northern Ontario. 

Photographs owned and taken by Caelan Chornoboy