Reading List for 01/31/2026
Welcome to the Reading List, a weekly roundup of news and links related to buildings, infrastructure, and industrial technology.
Some housekeeping items:
Continuing with the new reading list format this week, this time with a paywall ~1/3rd of the way down. I got some feedback that folks liked a little more analysis, so I’ve expanded that a bit more. As a reminder, this is intended to be a little bit more comprehensive than the older format, a more general survey of what went on in the world of infrastructure, buildings, and building things last week.
Last week I included a link to a claim on Twitter that Washington state lawmakers introduced a law that would inadvertently ban manufacturing. Several folks pointed out that this was incorrect.
Housing
Friend of the newsletter Bobby Fijan announced his new homebuilding company. The American Housing Company is a new, vertically integrated housing startup that plans to design, build, and sell or rent modular homes aimed specifically at families. There’s a few interesting things about their approach: they’re acting as both the builder and the developer, instead of trying to sell their homes to existing developers. And they’re using Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs), something I’ve always thought of as an underrated building technology. [American Housing]
The Telegraph has an article that drills into some of the code restrictions that prevent the construction of classic, beautiful architecture in Britain. [Telegraph]
Trump: “I don’t want to drive housing prices down. I want to drive housing prices up for people who own homes.” [Twitter]
The Terner Center’s Housing Ventures Lab is accepting applications for its accelerator program for new housing ventures. [Terner Labs]
Manufacturing
One of the most potent criticisms of tariffs is that they actually harm manufacturing by raising the costs of manufacturing inputs. In that vein, aluminum in the US used to be roughly the same price as in Europe and Japan, but starting in 2025 it diverged. “The regional premium for aluminum delivered to the US market climbed above $1 a pound for the first time as US President Donald Trump’s tariffs make the metal more expensive in the domestic market.” [Bloomberg]
Tesla seems eager to get out of the EV business, which is in the process of being totally eaten by Chinese manufacturers. This week Tesla announced that it will stop producing the Model S and Model X. The California factory where they’re built will be repurposed to build the Optimus humanoid robot. [BBC]
In that vein, China is now responsible for 2/3rds of all worldwide EV sales. [Twitter] And 20% of all heavy trucks sold in China are now EVs. [Bloomberg]
