Why the Building Industry Can’t Be Automated In the Same Way Tesla Car Manufactures Cars

In February 2015, Because We Can co-founder Jeffrey McGrew, an architect and friend of Laughing Squid, gave a thought provoking talk entitled “Talking with Robots about Architecture” at The Interval at The Long Now about the realities of building industry automation with a Venn diagram noting the number of reasons why the industry cannot be automated like a Tesla manufacturing plant. He also discussed how and why the industry appears to be unable to keep up with ever evolving technology

Architect Jeffrey McGrew ( becausewecan.org ) explains why houses can’t be built the way that Tesla builds cars; he explains the building industry in reference to Stewart Brand’s “Pace Layers” framework. From his 2015 talk “Talking with Robots about Architecture.”

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.