Is construction the least innovative industry?

A post in Atlantic Cities points out that construction, specifically the process of how design drawings get translated into built objects, hasn't changed in decades.

According to the article:

...the actual process used throughout the industry – architect cooks up idea, draws it, hands over paper, contractor eyeballs it, building goes up – has not fundamentally changed with time. And this isn’t a compliment.

Construction may be the least innovative industry in America, or at least, the least innovative industry that makes up a sizable chunk of our national GDP. And this is a problem in a world where technology is rapidly revolutionizing everything else about our daily lives, from how we communicate information to the way we receive medical care. Everything around us is technologically evolving, even the features inside our buildings (from solar panels to energy-efficient appliances) and yet the construction industry itself largely is not.

The overlooked element here is that architects, engineers, and contractors have been using BIM (building information modeling) to simultaneously work on and coordinate the design and construction of buildings for at least the last five years. And short of using construction robots, reading and interpreting drawings, even in the form of an integrated three dimensional model, requires a human eye.

How to Fix America's Least Innovative Industry: Construction [the Atlantic Cities]

Image: compujeramy flickr

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com