And they dont even know how to make a real asset!
I will never forget one of the most brilliant minds I ever had the opportunity to learn under, Michael Benedikt remarking to me: you have such great potential to be an architect, but you seem to care about other things. A validation of my mission that at the moment was hard to hear, but in hindsight delights me. I was never intended to be a capital A architect. I was intended to build tools for the architect so they might be more able to make capital A Architecture happen.
What do you do when those that you love are at odds with others that you also love? Cognitive dissonance breeds empathy. Empathy creates innovation. Living life in the middle of what felt like an OAC contract really makes you reconsider if the problem isn’t really the system and not each other.
Land owners don’t know what to sell their land for, so they call a broker.
Brokers don’t know how to price the land until they call a developer to ask what the land might be worth.
Developers don’t know how to pay for the land until they understand the design of the building.
Architects don’t know their budget for the building until the developer figures out what kind of income the building might need.
General contractors don’t know the size of the building until the architect creates the design
Subcontractors don’t know the pricing today, but will know the moment they call their suppliers.
Everyone has a very specific role, and can execute on it. But faced with outrageous housing demand we cannot create enough housing stock fast enough with this system. We can’t even compete with the US Government’s 5% 10 year T Bill. Housing, unfortunately, must be profitable to be built in the US.
The rate of innovation in BIM–an embarrassment.
The rate of innovation in financing–an embarrassment.
The rate of innovation in construction–an embarrassment.
As an American living in the greatest economy ever, we still have whole hell of a lot of work to do–and real assets are somehow less valuable to us.
No wonder the cryptobros are eating our lunch on attracting innovation and talent.
Let us consider the kind of industry we want to have. An empathetic one, or one where every shred of risk is mitigated–or one where we can engage as a master builder and actually change our chronic woes.
If you have made it this far…If you are a professional that knows how all of this works, intimately, I would engage with automation. Build new exotic tools nobody has ever dreamed of. It just might change real estate.