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
