Mobile Construction Modeling

It’s hard to believe but the first commercially available email programs didn’t appear until the late 1980’s, and though the communication benefits of electronic messaging were clear by the mid 90’s, many construction companies didn’t use email until the very late 1990’s and early 2000’s.

2D Techs or Construction Managers 
In fact, it took a new generation of project managers to introduce this simple technology to reluctant old-timers – and as most would admit, the fight goes on.

For example, now that cell phones and voice mail have become standards for project communications, some offices actually still take messages on hand written note pads, while senior managers without keyboard skills have assistants write memos and handle emails for them, finding computers intrusive, distracting, and perhaps a little frightening.

At the same time, according to a recent tweet from The Mortensen Company, more contractors now use BIM software than designers. Of course, it goes without saying that the average builder has no idea who Mortensen is, and though construction companies may claim to own some version of BIM software, complex 3D modeling is largely ignored for spreadsheets, print outs, and face to face fieldwork during actual construction. Even at Mortensen’s.  

BIM in the Real World 
It’s no secret then that BIM software requires trained technicians, anchored to software and graphic workstations that require constant updates and attention. In practice, working with this kind of technology is simply not practical on most jobsites, especially when a rolled out set of printed 2d contract documents are the basis for the actual scope of the work.

It’s also important to point out that design, including BIM and its 2D documents are only a very small part of the real world of construction management. Based on the value and cost of services, barely 10% of the entire process is design, permitting, and preconstruction, and of that, perhaps half of the effort falls into actual BIM production.

90% of Construction is Communications
Following the money, the focus should be on what is happening on the jobsite and finding ways to communicate more efficiently with the real world that surrounds it.
 
Especially considering that today, computer programs like SketchUp transfer files over the internet, send emails from menu selections, and automatically upload images, cost and schedule data, and daily reports to the cloud as a common way of storing, cataloging, and accessing construction information.

For a new generation of managers, communications between team members now occurs on PDAs (personal data assistants), immediately using smart phones to photo, scan, text, and tweet annotated images and video exported from SketchUp to coordinate project activities.

Mobility is the New Norm 
The mobility of these new devices and their ability to access an unlimited combination of resources has become a fundamental part of a continuous and instantaneous flow of project communications.

All of which is broadcasted wirelessly via satellite, cells, or broadband routers, giving managers immediate access to project information, the web for searches and bookmarks, networking platforms like Linked In and Facebook for market and background information, and graphical tools like You-Tube, image reference libraries, and animations for process control.

Today, the challenge is to understand how to use these new technologies effectively for construction communications, waiting again for a new generation of builders to demonstrate their competitive value in the real world.
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Homebuilt Builders are Outsiders

Builders who chose to be “outsiders” use random objects as form-givers, apply them as immediate solutions, stockpile them for some future application, or recognize some latent potential that inspires an entirely new direction in a constantly evolving architectural form.
 
Outsiders touch at the soul of a self-taught vision, human feelings, and an unmediated freedom of expression. Free from the constraints of stylistic trends and social expectations, these builders sculpt their constructions in real time.

Guided by instinct and a hands-on feel for their material, these self-taught builders use intuition and their own internal logic to assemble buildings that stand outside the mainstream of our more common social constructions. What we see as a result appears disordered to the institutionalized eye because they stand outside the boundaries of a straight and level world.

Homebuilt builders
Homebuilt house builders are also outsiders. They too are self-taught, intuitive, and self-determined. They also work to assemble a house without a plan according to random opportunities, not knowing when the work will ever be completed, or what it might look like if it ever is eventually finished.
 
What we see in a homebuilt house is architecture in motion, constantly evolving, responding to opportunities, material finds, and the insecurities of their uncertain worlds. Because they work on the margins of a formal economy, the construction of their buildings extends deep into an informal economy, where self-determination and self-reliance are largely misunderstood because of the characteristic chaos of what is a materially impoverished architectural vernacular.

As the product of informal transactions, these buildings are interesting counterpoints to the formal practices of modern construction industries, opening a window into the constraints modern builders face, including diminished craft for contracts and limited creative contributions in the buildings that they build. Their exclusion comes from the abstract explanations used to represent real world construction.

Two-dimensional abstractions 
What outsider architecture points to is how difficult it is to plan and capture its buildings in a 2D drawing or even a 3D model prior to their actual construction. By definition, outsider architecture, whether artistic or impoverished, defy preplanned abstractions.
 
Two-dimensional abstractions came with social controls that introduced specializations. Beginning with commissioned oil paintings that vaguely suggested a direction for builders to follow, these illustrations came to separate craft from construction. With industrialization and modernity, paintings evolved into technical drawings, ink on linen, then 1000h, vellum, Mylar, and finally CAD -- now hyped as BIM/3D (to 2D).

 In the end, it’s these cut and paste, two-dimensional tools that have come to shape our sense of order. Along with the predictability of the processes they dictate, the builder has been long removed from the creative process, forced to follow contractual documents as a linear and unimaginative legal obligation.

“…process becomes a substitute for thinking.” Elon Musk

Of course, without a plan, there can be no permits, contracts, or predictable outcomes to their architecture. But there is also a freedom in the absence of a plan to build structures in ways that parallel the hands-on origins of architecture as an outsider, allowing builders to think creatively in the field.  

Outsider documentation
At the same time, there’s value in capturing and understanding an outsider’s method, not in anticipation of an installation or to analyze alternate assemblies, but as a device to definitively track and deconstruct an erratic and unpredictable process in order to validate the logic of its construction.
 
These are buildings that do not fit well in an abstract 2D world, instead they are piece-based and resource driven, and must be sequenced and animated in real-time to interactively identify each piece as part of an erratic assembly, exactly as it occurs in the real world.

Unlike the linear BIM to 2D translations used in the field today, the indeterminate nature of outsider architecture requires multidimensional construction models that draw on the full potential of computational tools just now becoming available.

A good example of these new tools is the SimFonIA Animation Plug-in for SketchUp. Almost a complete rewrite of the SketchUp interface, the software allows outsiders to animate a piece-based construction model by directly controlling the graphical attributes of groups and components within the model. This includes the use of key frames as predefined transformations and relative motions between objects during an intermittent assembly process.

Because the hierarchy of the groups is respected by SAT’s software, attributes and transformations respond to time, gravity, and conflicts, allowing builders to revisit and replay undocumented sequences in order to understand or further explain what was, at least at the time, an otherwise indeterminate process. A construction document that follows these kinds of object oriented data relationships opens the door to a real time, interactive, multidimensional construction document as a system of graphical information.

The value of such a document is obvious to a builder who works outside the bureaucratic constraints of our regulatory governments. But to mainstream practitioners, institutionalized methods and formalized practices mean such an open-ended approach to construction communication remains well beyond the margins of our now antiquated BIM/3D (to 2D) standards.

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Elements of a Homebuilt House

Working excerpt taken from: HOME-BUILT HOUSE: Shelter for an Uncertain World, ISBN 978 09762741 7 9

Abandoned Land: A homebuilt house is built on unwanted or otherwise unusable land, when ownership is unknown or confused. Neglected, abandoned, and unclaimed property occur on private and public land where the jurisdictions of local, regional, and federal authorities is loosely defined and unclear, especially along right of ways, reserves, or borders and boundaries between governing agencies, private parcels, and lands held in the public domain due to long abandoned titles.

Home as a Sense of Place: A homebuilt house starts by occupying a site long enough to establish a visible presence and a sense of place on the land as a home. This begins with informal gestures, incidental interactions, and minor site improvements that vaguely signal intent to settle on the land. Initial improvements might include removing trash, clearing weeds, trimming branches, and trying different paths to test unobtrusive ways to access a possible house.

Materials Negotiate Tenure: Months may pass with only minor improvements to the home-land before deciding to proceed with the house’s construction. Expendable materials are then used as pawns to signal intent and test reaction. First placed on the land, then slowly pieced together as a shelter on land already used as a home. Each piece of the assembly further tests the site’s potential for long-term occupancy. The process is slow and cautious; continuing for years with each step slightly more visible than the last.

Form Giving Resources: Where conventional housing begins with an engineered plan and permits, a homebuilt house starts without a plan and no preconceived idea of its eventual size or shape. The house emerges like sculpture, using whatever tools and materials that become available for its construction. The slow and methodical hands-on process means skills also evolve gradually as tools are accumulated and the house slowly morphs into a more ordered form.

Imperceptible Process: A homebuilt house evolves so slowly that no one knows when construction actually began or even if it continues. The key to its initial success is a patient strategy where no single action triggers a response from neighbors or regulators. The process requires a measured balance, incrementally taking on the beginnings of tenable housing, both recognized and ignored as it evolves over decades into its final form.

Three-dimensional storage: Keenly aware of the variables, a homebuilt house is assembled to be reconstructible, ready to be moved or reconfigured whenever an unforeseen event or some newly found material comes along. The result is an architecture shaped by chance and marginality. This is architecture at the baseline of consumption, almost Zen-like simplicity, not much more than the essence of what a house really is, but physically transparent, revealing the disorder that is a unique characteristic of its vernacular of uncertainty.

Intuitively Engineered: Where a conventional house is engineered according to manufactured materials and a predictable process, a homebuilt house is built intuitively, following the logic of trial and error. Its random materials mean each piece of the construction must be carefully considered in the context of what has already been assembled. Failures are resolved by reinforcing weaknesses with temporary solutions while continually exploring alternatives.

ConstantState of Improvement: Where most houses are in a constant state of deterioration, a homebuilt house is in a constant state of improvement. This means the house is constantly changing, growing slowly as it is shaped by its random resources, financial reserves, and the socio-political environment in which it is assembled. What we see as a result is an incomplete house-form, whose shape is shifting, evolving slowly, changing in response to life in an uncertain world.

Debt-Free and Self-Sustainable: To be sustainable, a homebuilt house must be debt-free. The primary motivation for the hardships and sacrifices necessary to build a homebuilt house is the reluctance of its builders to spend what little they might have on a mortgage, rent, taxes, fees, and unnecessary consumables. Already marginalized by an economic system that leaves them with just enough to survive, any payments to landlords and government agencies means a substantial portion of their income would be lost in mind numbing rituals that leave them with few opportunities.
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Definition of a Homebuilt House

A working except from our new book: Surviving @ Net Zero: Building Shelter for an Uncertain World (Dec 2012)

A homebuilt house is the product of a self-determined hands-on process, assembled from a unique collection of accidental materials, installed intuitively with inventive details that accommodate uncommon combinations of salvaged scrap. The house evolves slowly on otherwise unusable land with no preconceived plan, little if any money, and no political or stylistic obligations. What we see as a result is an innate human determination to create shelter, stripped of the restrictions of codes, standards, and commonly held practices.



This is a piece-based construction model built in real time, a uniquely human structure, unplanned and unregulated, the antithesis of the pretense and excess of consumptive practices. Fundamentally sustainable because of the absence of superfluous ideals, its lessons suggest an instinctive approach to construction without stylistic constraints.


As such, homebuilt houses share a richly impoverished vernacular, one that holds lessons for builders who practice in a more privileged but equally uncertain world. Obviously, this begins with the random and unpredictable nature of its materials. In this construction, available resources dictate both design and process. As accidental discoveries, materials and tools are form-givers, repurposed according to an instinctive logic, tentatively applied to resolve an immediate need, leaving the outcome unfinished and constantly evolving.

Most important, this is architecture in motion, emerging from its uncertain context like reconstructible sculpture, morphing according to new needs and opportunities, conforming to the essentials of each moment in a constant struggle for relevance and survival.

Informal Builders

An informal builder is an economically marginalized man or woman, untrained and often inexperienced, who builds intuitively on invaded land while avoiding regulated standards or conventional methods. They build slowly without the luxury of design or plan, using simple tools and salvaged or discarded materials with the singular objective of meeting the immediate needs of their survival.

Marginalized by factors far beyond their control, these builders have opted out of a formal economy and decide to build housing for themselves on otherwise wasted or unusable land. Excluded by high costs and regulated values, they build because there are no other options for their housing, no clear path to follow for their security, and no desire to become dependent on what is often a corrupt and ineffective government.

Ideas emerge from instincts What is surprising is that given what seems like insurmountable challenges, the details of many informal houses go far beyond what is absolutely necessary for basic shelter. Some builders are clearly experimenting with new ideas.

Ideas and instincts are of course all that any good builder ever has, but even the crudest house in an informal settlement is evidence of the self-confidence, optimism, and desperation that drives these self-determined builders to assemble what often appears to be an outrageously dangerous structure. Perched on steep hillsides or abandoned riverbeds, these houses take on the characteristics and details of a vernacular based on a chaotic collection of materials, hunted and gathered from the waste streams that surrounded them. 

Hands-on Builder 

Most interesting is that informal builders share a tactile understanding of the three-dimensional potential of a material. This includes a willingness to visually test ideas by fitting a variety of objects together, piecing them into the details of an evolving physical form. These builders work like sculptors, assembling, deconstructing, and revising their buildings according to the “feel” of a natural builder. 

   

With no preconceived plan, each piece of the construction therefore becomes a form giver, continually rethought in the context of its assembly. As materials are sorted, stored, and temporarily installed, the construction waits for some future inspiration, perhaps a completely different idea that will only come from materials that remain to be discovered. 
 

An informal vernacular  

Important is that what we see as a result comes from an indeterminate process. There is no schedule, no list of materials, and only a vague idea of what the house might look like if it is ever finished. This struggle comes not from a desire to own or possess something of value, but to protect and provide shelter in an uncertain world. The process thereby provides both purpose and place to a family in the hopes that their determination will one day turn this house into a place they can call home. 

The commitment of informal builders to their work is clearly reflected in this capacity to endure the unpredictable circumstances of their lives. What remains is to wonder at the perceptive choices of their informal constructions, choices that are somehow oddly humanized by a self-determined struggle for survival.

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Working draft taken from: HOME-BUILT HOUSE: Shelter for an Uncertain World, ISBN 978 09762741 7 9, due out later this year (I hope) as a full color/interactive eBook. .

Beyond Simply Design

SketchUp has long been known as a simple 3D modeling program. In the hands of a professional designer, it can be used to create amazingly dramatic renderings of imagined buildings. It is also used by movie producers, set designers, and game builders to create magically immersive worlds that provide realistic backdrops to tell their stories -- or kill some threatening predator.
 
SketchUp can now be linked to relatively inexpensive three-dimensional printers to “print” physical models that can be held in hand, passed around, and studied without the need for a computer to mediate interaction with an idea.
   
Results are not static
Big box material suppliers use similar 3D modeling programs to plan kitchens, patios, and even houses. Three-dimensional models are effective tools for retailers, because they visually close on an idea and turn it into actual sales. For example, with a few clicks through an IKEA 3D planning program, entire rooms can be laid out, revised, and printed to include a complete list of materials along with total costs, SKU numbers, and aisle locations for pickup on your way to the checkout line.

The freedom to explore one’s own ideas using antiquated drafting tools was once an intimidating prospect. It took training to draw plans and elevations, or a vertical section through a room -- let alone a three dimensional sketch. Ironically, when complete, old school experts were needed to visually interpret their own solutions, relying on practiced jargon, napkin sketches, and cardboard models to help people “understand” what they wanted a contractor to build.

Following professorial edicts, these professionals were more often far removed from the realities of the budgets and priorities of their clients. And unfortunately, the results were not always as they were sold, leaving owners and builders to work through errors, omissions, and misunderstandings that only added to the cost of the final construction.
 

Amateurs born on the platform
SketchUP has been instrumental in using 3D models to put “everyone” back in control of their own ideas. Amateur designers and their builders are now able to work directly in ways that were not possible only a few years ago. Simple 3D modeling and 2D drafting programs have opened doors to completely new self-made architectural expressions.

These are intuitive designs. Fantasies really, but not far from what many people pay a professional to create for them. The difference of course, is that a few hours of playing with a model becomes a form of self-expression that can only come from planning, rethinking, and revising one’s own ideas in three-dimensions.  

And that’s the point really
When SketchUp first came out, the marketing mantra was “3D for everyone.” The idea was that anyone could use the program to push-pull, orient, and imagine their own scaled solutions in three-dimensions. Neither design or construction are rocket science, and when the results are of one’s own making, even with a few problems and quirks, an owner –built house can be far more rewarding than living with someone else’s ideas.

In the end, design is no more than the ability to visually replicate historical or contemporary references that can now be found all over the internet. And construction is simply organized common sense. An assembly of pieces and materials in a logical sequence, according to readily available instructions, backed by builders who in practice often complete their work with barely a glance at a designer’s abstract plans and specifications.
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Trimble SketchUp? Good Enough…

When the sale of Google SketchUp to Trimble Navigation was announced, it reminded me of the days when the original SketchUp development team was still around. They held an informal conference a few blocks from their offices in the Fall of 2005. It was a small gathering at a little hotel with break out sessions, a few larger presentations, and fabulous display of food and drinks. Not sure, but maybe 500 people tops attended, some invited, most came because they were chosen in a lottery.

At the time, not many realized this simple 3D modeling program was about to be swallowed up by some really big ideas.

SketchUp and @Last Software
@Last Software had a startup spirit then that was infectious and somehow oddly personal. The enthusiasm of their employees started at the top with founders Brad Schell and Joe Esch and made it all the way down to almost everyone in the organization. And thanks to Mark Carvalho and a core group of evangelists, their marketing approach was so personal that everyone wanted to meet the people who put this amazingly intuitive program together. All dedicated geniuses, that was pretty clear.

It was also pretty clear that @Last was looking for an out. Autodesk and Google were sort of circling around, Trimble might have even been there. And there were open and honest conversations about the future direction for SketchUp including an all hands meeting where the development team introduced an early version of Layout -- a page composer that coupled 3D to 2D using an AutoCAD paperspace like environment. A photo texturing editor was also hinted at, as well as a passing mention of a geo-locating feature that linked SketchUp to Google Earth.

What was interesting was that these in-house presentations were more about testing reaction to ideas than it was about announcing new features. That worked because it triggered a lot of the discussion about balancing the wish-list for more “cool” design features with the original idea of keeping SketchUp a simple, user friendly 3D modeler. More than one attendee cautioned the team not to make things too complicated with new features. Keeping the program simple was something most understood as the strength of the program.

Of course, you can’t keep something simple and survive, let alone succeed – financially that is – without a lot of new features. You need a market, growth, and more paying users, and you couldn’t get that without a lot of hype and grandstanding.

Google and SketchUp
The startup energy was long gone when we revisited the SketchUp offices in Boulder after the Google acquisition. In its place were security procedures, unsmiling workers, openly political posturing, and a tension and focus that reminded us of an old fashioned sweatshop. Not that it was. It was just that the joy seemed to have faded into a kind of forced happiness that came with all you can eat goodies, offered like candy to children.

Probably no different than any other Google office on a normal day, but the contrast was striking when one thought back to the energy and enthusiasm of the original @Last team. We never went back. Google had literally moved Google Earth in on @Last, bringing with them a new and more global focus, big ideas and a lot of money.

Though some at the 2005 conference believed SketchUp’s new geo-locating feature and Google Earth had rather limited applications, as it turned out it was that feature, along with patents on the simple and user friendly Push/Pull modeling engine, that sold Google on the acquisition. Their goal of course was to populate Google Earth with photoreal 3D models. We all know now that “Street Views” does a far better job of capturing real photo-reality. And it is Trimble Navigation that makes Street Views possible.

Now it’s Trimble’s turn
It’s interesting to read the latest threads on the SketchUp forums about the Trimble acquisition. Still the dreamy wish lists for all kinds of “cool” new features that Trimble should incorporate. Not that that’s bad, but it explains the kind of specialized focus that looks more to light rays, textures, and design tools that fuel both the forums and a much more interesting after market of Plugins and third-party programs.

Of course, no one knows what Trimble’s plans really are, but it’s a pretty safe bet that they see the real value of SketchUp in the very same, simple, intuitive Push/Pull modeling engine that Google purchased from @Last -- and probably still maintains a financial interest.

Unlike many designers, almost every constructor knows what any one of Trimble Navigation’s four core market segments has already done to revolutionize field surveying, layout, agriculture, exploration, and geo-mapping. Their GPS technology has literally changed the way field work is done for almost everything that includes a survey, plot, plan, map, farm, drone, scanners, or satellite. This of course includes what Trimble Navigation did for “Street Views” and Google Earth.
http://www.geosystems.co.nz/drupal/taxonomy/term/16
http://www.korecgroup.com/ 

Add to these innovative technologies, the recent acquisition by Trimble Navigation of a handful of point scanning and BIM and CAD software and management companies and you get an idea why SketchUp is such a good fit for where they are going. A “cool” design tool may be on the table, but there’s much more opportunity in blending two and three-dimensional visualization with GPS, geo-data, mapping, engineering, production, and civil and building construction.

These are the core markets for Trimble Navigation and there is little doubt that all of these systems are about to see the same simple 3D modeling engine that @Last invented and patented years ago incorporated into their software. It’s like going back into the future, all over again.

Back to Simple “3D for everybody”
The point here is that it’s the underlying simplicity programmed by Esch and Schell that makes SketchUp so valuable to these huge companies. These are pretty much the same lines of code, in the same software engine, that the original @Last team introduced with the original versions of SketchUp all those years ago.

 And the real value of that embedded software code remains its simplicity.
 The irony is that it’s this same original @Last simplicity that makes SketchUp so important for construction communications. In fact, one of our first books, 3D Construction Modeling (link), remains popular in the used book market because it uses SketchUp Version 4. Much easier to learn because it is exactly what @Last invented – a simple modeling program that brings “3D to everyone.”
 
I should confess here that all our models are built with version 5 (sometimes 6). In fact, the secret to make construction modeling fast and cost effective is to focus on keeping things plain and simple. This is the same thing that is driving the interests of industry giants like Google and Trimble Navigation in the SketchUp technology and paradoxically parallels the original vision for SketchUp as a simple 3D visualization tool. Remember “3D for everybody.”

In the end, the intent of a construction model is not to impress, but to simply and quickly inform and explain the means or method of a process in 3D. Coloring and rendering in the virtual world might be a lot of fun, but they’re time consuming and have no place in construction. And as Trimble knows, the real money has always been in the real world.
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Where Design is Not an Option

Another working except from our new book: Surviving @ Net Zero: Building Shelter for an Uncertain World (Nov 2012)

A construction model is a good example of a tool that has changed the way we build buildings today. For most, these models are important because they increase productivity, efficiency, and profit, along with better documentation and the long dreamed of hope of eliminating conflicts before they get into the field. To capitalize on their potential, proponents of construction modeling have adopted industry wide euphemisms like “building information models” or “BIM” just to sell the idea. 

For SketchUp construction modelers, the ability to fabricate materials, preassemble them as pieces and think through a quick three-dimensional process, while intuitively inventing solutions, is a return to the traditions of the early builders. The ability to piece together a simple construction model signals a new age and self-determined approach for the hands-on builder.

The natural builder
As a consequence of our modernity, the work of builders has long been overshadowed by formal contracts, costs, and values that have made the instincts of a natural builder pretty much irrelevant in a formal economy. It now takes a great deal of education, training and experience to succeed in the construction industry At the same time, informal builders work outside of a construction industry, untouched by money, profit or the satisfaction of a career. Impoverished, marginalized, and excluded by choice or chance, these builders build because there is no other option, no clear path to follow for their own personal security. To survive in an unregulated world, they must provide shelter for themselves and their families.

What is interesting is that many of these builders go far beyond what is absolutely necessary for basic shelter, some are clearly experimenting with new ideas, and almost all share an intuitive blend of self-confidence, optimism, instinct, and desperation that leads them to build what often appear to be outrageously dangerous structures.

Perched on steep hillsides or abandoned riverbeds, they put together buildings with a few hand tools, very little money, and an odd collection of materials hunted and gathered from whatever resources that surround them. The objects informal builders manage to find are indeterminate, which means they must constantly rethink their application, sorting and storing, waiting for some future inspiration -- perhaps an idea that will be triggered by their next material discovery. All of this, with hunger and insecurity relentlessly at play, ready to discourage their carefully considered inventive strategies.

As a result, what we see in the informal sector are buildings shaped by luck, risk, and intuition. These are buildings assembled instinctively in a world where resources are unpredictable, random, and only available when found at little or no costs. Tools and experience influence quality, but constructions begin and end like sculptures. Without the luxury of a plan, design is not an option. Instead, pieces are assembled temporarily as a three-dimensional form of habitable storage, built to be deconstructed and reassembled as new materials are discovered and new configurations are created.  

An instinct for construction
What’s interesting is that these are the same instinctive qualities shared by builders assembling pieces for a virtual construction model. Like informal builders, piece-based modelers share a tactile understanding of the three-dimensional potential of a material. This includes their willingness to visually test ideas by fitting a variety of objects into the details of an evolving physical form -- assembling, deconstructing, and reassembling their buildings according to the self-determined “feel” of a natural builder.

This innate passion for construction can be seen in the assemblies of many of the buildings in an informal settlement, clearly reflecting the capacity of their owners to endure the unpredictable circumstances of their lives, the absence of any official support, and the impoverished nature of simply surviving in a net-zero economy. What remains is to wonder at the perceptive genius of their informal constructions, something that has long since been lost to the standards, rules, and regulations of a formal economy.
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Beyond Fashion and Style

Another working except from our new book: Surviving @ Net Zero: Building Shelter for an Uncertain World (Nov 2012)

Most would agree that the cultural context of a building influences the characteristics of its physical form. These are usually seen as decorative features, part of a temporal and evolving style, with no universal truth or purpose other than to entertain the aspirations of their clients. When they work, the resulting buildings fulfill the expectations of their time and place with no lasting influence on society or construction technology.

Even classic building styles are self-defined by the historic, religious, or political discourse that surrounds them, icons of certain cultural values and not the result of some deeper social significance or aesthetic. As a result, we live with buildings that reproduce contemporary ideals only to be oddly antiquated with the passing of time.   

The Vernacular of Net Zero
By contrast, a vernacular architecture describes the physical characteristic of a building that reflects a common method of construction that uses local labor and materials to satisfy the shared needs of a community without adding superfluous stylistic decorations. There is no feature in a vernacular that goes beyond the functional requirements of its existence as a building. As such a vernacular is not influenced by changing trends or fashionable statements that find themselves dated and worn in time.

Vernacular buildings are purposeful, reflecting a human response to their environmental, economic, and social context as a collection of inherent qualities that are often dismissed as crude and unsophisticated by proponents of more self-conscious building styles.

The buildings seen in the informal sector reflect many of the values of a vernacular architecture. While some include personal expressions, they all use the same locally salvaged resources, built with simple hand tools and an intuitive, almost primitive approach to their construction. The result is an immediately recognizable sense of disorder that reflects the essence of their function as pure shelter.
This absence of order is of course shaped by impoverished technical limitations, economic exclusion, and a subsequent social marginality that has reduced these buildings to their primal purpose. As such they are a natural response to a basic need for self-preservation as a derivative of a net zero economy with no governing social mandate or regulatory authority to care for them.

Intuitive Construction Methods
What’s interesting is that these informal buildings are slowly reinforced by the security that comes with tenure on land occupied with varying levels of economic success. As such, they are not simply the result of a community of people desperately and haphazardly assembling buildings.

Instead there is a method to their construction that includes a carefully considered assumption of the potential of materials and methods, with clear evidence of varying levels of construction quality. The distinct features of an informal vernacular are driven by the limitations of the materials, tools, and skills available to their builders.

Though it’s easy to discount the resulting structures as completely inadequate, look closer and you see details that require solutions that would be difficult to duplicate with formal construction methods.

 As a result, what we see in these informal buildings is an architecture stripped of the systemic support of an industry of processed materials and practices, leaving the informal builder to invent and implement solutions that are fundamental to their personal needs. Design exists as physical form of three-dimensional problem solving, depending solely on available resources and reduced to the essence of self-determination, imagination, and inventive thought.

The 3D modeling methods of these unique builders follow a survival strategy that holds clear lessons for construction in an uncertain world.
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