Construction Physics Table of Contents

An overview of most Construction Physics posts, organized by topic (this is just a rough guide, as many posts will touch on multiple areas.) The posts in bold are the ones that I think are the most important.

Construction Innovation

• Why it’s hard to innovate in construction

• What construction innovation uptake looks like

• BIM, Revit, and the database dream

Efficiency and Costs

• Measuring construction efficiency

• Construction costs around the world: how does the US compare?

• Construction cost breakdown and partial industrialization

Manufacturing and Production Theory

• Where are my damn learning curves?

• Logistics, production volume and industrialized building

• Batch, flow, and variability

• Book review: The Sources of Increased Efficiency

• Construction, Ford, and a lever to move the world

• Construction and the Toyota Production System

• Building components, and the past and future of construction

Automation

• Where are the robotic bricklayers?

• Japan’s Skyscraper Factories

• Why did agriculture mechanize and not construction?

Building Materials and Building Systems

• Bricks and the Industrial Revolution

• So you want to use less concrete

• Mass effects

• Wood construction and the risk of fire

• Comparing flooring systems

• Balloon framing is worse is better

• How long will a home last?

• Stronger, faster, cheaper: the future of wood

Business and Industry Structure

• Building complexity and the construction community of practice

• 60 years of homebuilding

• Design Bid Build and the construction value chain

• Real estate, property rights, and negotiation

• Every building in America: an analysis of the US building stock

Business Case Studies and Construction History

• Another day in Katerradise

• Operation Breakthrough: America’s failed government program to industrialize home production

• Toyota’s Prefab Homes

• The Lustron Home

• Autovol, Stack Modular and labor arbitrage

• Broad Group Part I and Part II

• WWII-era mass-produced housing Part I and Part II

• Book review: Industrialized Building Part I and Part II

• Manufactured homes

Interviews

• Interview with David Menard, product manager for Unity Reflect

• Interview with Scott Reynolds, cofounder of Upcodes

1000-year house

• Combined and updated draft

• Original Part I

• Original Part II

• Original Part III