diff --git a/SConstruct b/SConstruct
index 1360e9fa4..81456fde4 100644
--- a/SConstruct
+++ b/SConstruct
@@ -1 +1,2 @@
-SConscript('SConscript', variant_dir='build', duplicate=0)
+AddOption('--builddir',dest="builddir",default="build",help="Directory to build to.")
+SConscript('SConscript', variant_dir=GetOption('builddir'), duplicate=0)