Construction is one of the largest industries still resist the call of the 21st century, its practitioners opt for old but proven methods. Ben Huh, Cheezburger's fame, aims to modernize the planning and assembly of buildings with floor plans and rooms generated by software that fit together like LEGO bricks.
Huh's new company, Social Construct, manages everything from design to execution, leaving only the actual person's work to the building contractors. By optimizing the layouts, laying cables and pipes under the floors instead of in the walls and standardizing both the pieces and the assembly, this technically informed new method could reduce the time and cost of building a building by 20 to 30 percent.
The company was born in 2017 from a project at Y Combinator, in which Huh worked after leaving the web culture pioneer Cheezburger. While researching the economics of construction, he was surprised by both the scale and the dated nature of the sector.
Compared to the cost of electronics production or the launch of other large multi-million dollar efforts, which have fallen precipitously, construction costs and times have remained fixed or increased for decades.
"There have been productivity gains everywhere, but not in construction. It peaks in the 70s, then it goes down, "he explained, illustrating the problem as follows:" Imagine having a 55-inch hole in your wall - today it is cheaper to buy a TV to cover the hole than to fix it. "
It is unquestionably true, but why should it be? The simple fact is that most construction-related jobs have not become easier or more accurate and that jobs are not as desirable as they once were. So the cost of labor increases along with that of increasingly sophisticated buildings. But this raises another question: why hasn't the job become easier or more precise?
It turns out that construction, although it is a huge industry, is very fragmented and understandably quite risk averse. Even if someone wanted to question the doctrines and practices with which buildings are constructed, they do not command the capital to do so.
"People do things because that's what they've been taught. Nobody has millions of dollars in dollars to say, "What if we do it differently?" All these advantages present themselves, but then you have to reinvent part of the wheel and companies have no reason to do it. There is no reason why an entrepreneur can ever think of doing it, "explained Huh.
The industry has effectively isolated itself against a great deal of innovation with an "if it's not broken, don't spend millions of dollars to fix it" attitude. It would take a newcomer backed by the firm to overturn the conventions that have kept costs and construction methods in stasis for decades. So at least Huh's hypothesis, and he believes that the social construct is that newcomer.
Computational construction
Huh recalls that his team questioned the status quo: "We asked ourselves, could we build an entire building with precisely constructed parts, the way you would build a plane?"
It turns out that people have tried a few times, even before CAD made the idea so attractive. "They tried it in the 70s," said Huh. "What they found was that they never got the parts fit. The designs assumed an idealized space - exactly 10 feet or more. but it is never quite 10 feet, the parts are not so precise. Half an inch of error over 10 feet is actually quite good. So everyone works around each other, which means the parts need to be cut to fit. Flexibility is more important than precision. "
Where the Social Construct process deviates from the industry norm is at the point where the general shape and purpose of the building and its plans were decided. For example, it could be a largely triangular building with flat corners, the elevator in the center and three one-bedroom and one two-bedroom apartments on each floor.
This type of design can be solved by an architect in a few hours, but the details of where exactly everything goes, from water systems to power lines, can take much longer. That's where the computer takes over.
You might call him an AI, but Huh deliberately avoided the term to avoid any suspicion of trying to ride a particular hype train. Working from that level of detail, the Social Construct system plans every aspect of the building, optimizing the layout for a variety of parameters.
There are three key aspects:
First, the construction uses prefabricated "assemblies", of which there are about a hundred types in total: walls with kitchen furniture, walls with holes for shower fixtures, lighting and so on. These pieces can be transported by one person or at most two, and can be inserted into the frame. This minimizes the possibility that there are unusual dimensions or requirements which mean that this wall needs to be thicker or that an extra length of piping is needed to feed the bathroom sink. It also simplifies assembly and repair work. In the presence of normal walls or non-standard widths, normal drywall is used.
Secondly, all pipes, cables and assorted wall infrastructure have been moved under the floor, the paths predetermined by the computer. Everything goes in a small space under the floorboards - which provides better acoustic and thermal insulation as a side benefit. This further simplifies construction, as there is no need to adapt or improvise angles, lengths and other aspects of water or electrical work. It is not even necessary to connect the light switches, since they are wireless and kinetically powered.
Third, the layout is calculated to minimize the possibility of variance in measurements or construction. Cuts can never be perfect and microscopic errors add up, so the 20-foot corridor in the design document may actually need to be 20 feet and a quarter of an inch. The computer knows this and plans around it, avoiding situations that tend to create that kind of variance where possible and allowing last minute adjustments when it's inevitable.
So the sequence of events is that the building's basic "shell", including all the usual stacks and structural pieces, is built normally - that part doesn't change at all. Once done, the team measures the actual dimensions inside very, very carefully, which allows the computer to design exactly for that space. Then the walls are raised according to the generated plan, the cables are laid according to the same, the assemblies are inserted and locked in place, and finally the wooden floors are installed, with the pieces cut to adapt to what small differences compared to the plan have emerged.
"We compared this to a conventionally constructed building and are seeing that we can save 20 percent on construction costs," said Huh - and considering that construction represents around two thirds of a building's entire budget, which it could save tens of millions of people out of the bat. The Social Construct building was also completed 2 months faster.
Faster work may seem less hours for subcontractors and the like, but Huh said they are pointing out that lower costs and faster work mean more productivity, so the pay-back to take home is comparable but the jobs will be easier and more numerous. .
It is important to note that the Social Construct is not really going into the contractual part of things. The plan is to collaborate, train and certify contractors so they can scale more like a platform than a boot company on the ground - "Which makes us sustainable for businesses," Huh noted.
At this time the first building built with these methods has been sold and the company is looking for its next site, the local partner and the owner of the land - and so they have decided to exit the invisible mode.
Social Capital already has approximately $ 17 million in funding, from Floodgate, S28 Capital, Felicis, Founders Fund and ("of course," said Huh) Y Combinator. They will seek more as soon as they begin the downsizing process, but it seems wise to remain silent until there is an entire building they could point to and say, "look, it works!"
So if your dream was to live in a computer-designed building and apartment, you're a little late, but it looks like this will be the first of many.
