On Failure

Across from me in the Difference Design office is a shelf holding a row of Kodak Ektagraphic universal slide projector trays (long story).  Above that is a whiteboard with a work/traffic flow diagram of a kitchen project that demonstrates that the combined distance from the fridge to the stove to the sink is 18 feet (which may be too much). 

And above that is a reminder to myself that I look at many, many times every day:

Failure IS an option.

This is perhaps not the slogan that you want splashed across the front page of your web site, but it is, nevertheless, the base principle on which I base my day to day work. 

It has been written that construction is a 'dynamically conservative industry', that is: it works very hard to stay in the same place.  And that place is not a good one.  A study looking at building projects worldwide found that on a randomly selected project, the likelihood that actual costs were higher than estimated was 86%.  And not a little bit higher, on average, it was 28% higher.  In other words, the construction industry is doing a TERRIBLE job, almost across the board.

In what other industry would this kind of performance be tolerated?  How would you react if you ordered at a restaurant only to be told that your ravioli would be ready either tonight, or definitely by Wednesday. Also it would cost somewhere between 7 and 13 dollars, they'll let you know.  But when building a house, where the stakes are so much higher, that level of performance is literally standard.

I do not accept that such a state of affairs is acceptable or sustainable.  The way that we build needs to be rethought, and in dramatic, not incremental, ways.

Which is where the Lab in Difference Design Lab comes in.  The US Army may hold armor onto the sides of tanks with steel mesh Velcro, but it turns out that that is not a good way to hang siding.  It is true that lighting a room using long strands of fiber optic cable eliminates difficult and time consuming electrical runs, but it's also true that it is shockingly ugly.  Securing shelving to a steel wall using industrial strength magnates creates a quick and incredibly secure bond, unfortunately, anyone within 5 feet of said shelf with a pacemaker may wish we weren't quite so ingenious.

What do these things have in common?  They are all really bad ideas that I personally have come up with.  But, once in a blue moon, after testing and arguing and re-testing, we come up with something smart.

This is a blog about that testing and fighting.  I hate corporate blogs as much as you do, so no one will try to sell you anything here.   Instead, we hope you’ll follow along as we fail and argue our way to some dramatically better ways to build a house.


--Zach