Welcome to the reading list, a weekly roundup of news and links related to buildings, infrastructure, and industrial technology. This week we look at propane in air conditioners, Anduril making submarine parts, nuclear reactors on the moon, the robotic hand landscape (handscape?), and more. Roughly 2/3rds of the reading list is paywalled, so for full access become a paid subscriber.
Housing
Someone created a city building game where you try to navigate local opposition to get housing built in San Francisco. [X]
I somehow missed this paper from last year analyzing the impact of International Building Code changes from 2012 to 2021 on construction costs. “Between 2012 and 2021, the International Code Council (ICC) adopted 130 revisions to the International Building Code (IBC) affecting multifamily development. Using a detailed prototype of a three-story apartment building and holding material prices and labor productivity constant at 2024 levels, we find that 16 of these revisions raised national average construction costs by 9.9 percent relative to a 2009 IBC baseline, with fire protection requirements accounting for the largest share.” [SSRN]
Should we be using propane as a refrigerant in our heat pumps and air conditioners? [The Rebuild]
Another look at what’s in the Senate’s new permitting reform bill. [Abundance and Growth]
Manufacturing
Atomic Machines, a manufacturing startup using a vaguely described manufacturing process that “builds working micro machines from code alone” (whatever that means) emerged from stealth and got a lot of attention on Twitter. [X] A NYT article on the company has a little more information, but not much. “Using the same techniques that drive a chatbot, Atomic Machines is building A.I. technology that can discover new ways of designing extremely small devices. By analyzing thousands of experiments involving standard manufacturing materials and finding patterns in how these materials interact, it learns to piece them together in ways that produce viable devices.” [NYT]
The CEO of OSH Cut (a similar sort of business to SentCutSend) on what he thinks the future of manufacturing looks like. A few similarities here to my concept of “AWS for Everything.” [X]
The Navy awarded defense startup Anduril a $2.9 billion contract to manufacture components for Virginia-class nuclear submarines. “Arsenal-2 will build complex components and large scale assemblies of the Virginia-class submarine and deliver them to Electric Boat and Newport News Shipbuilding for final assembly. Adding another source of this work will allow more submarine construction to happen in parallel across the industrial base and increase the overall capacity available to the Virginia-class program.” [Anduril]
Domestic car sales in China have apparently not risen at all since roughly 2015? [X]
Related, Chinese car sales are really taking off in Britain. “The Jaecoo 7, made by China’s Chery Automobile, was Britain’s bestselling vehicle in September, an important sales month in the U.K. In the first half of 2026, almost every sixth car sold in Britain bore a Chinese brand, according to Schmidt Automotive Research, a higher proportion than in any other European country except Norway.” [WSJ]