korrents

What Brian Potter thinks about design

@brian-potter · 43 positions · 1 change of mind

Structural engineer and writer, author of the Construction Physics newsletter, where he takes apart how large physical things — buildings, ships, semiconductor fabs, aeroplanes — actually get made, and why the cost of making them moves the way it does.

Everything they publish, on ppll ↗

Brian Potter did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

35 dated positions, 2021 to 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Brian Potter has said — not written or endorsed by them.

35 positions so far — this page is not yet offered to search engines.

  1. Our readingIt has virtually never got cheaper to build a house or an office: construction costs rise at or above general inflation, in every rich country and over a century of data.

    Their wordsConstruction costs tend to rise at, or above, the level of overall inflation, and it rarely (if ever) gets cheaper to build houses, offices, or other buildings.

    ↗Construction Costs Rarely Fallconstruction-physics.com

    inflation

    Interesting
  2. 4 months earlier

  3. Our readingFactory-built construction has not raised productivity: the countries that prefabricate most, Sweden and Japan, have had flat construction productivity for decades.

    Their wordsSweden, for instance, is often praised for its high adoption of prefabricated construction, but since the 1990s Sweden has had roughly flat construction labor productivity, even as it has made more extensive use of prefabrication.

    ↗Stagnant Construction Productivity Is a Worldwide Problemconstruction-physics.com 1st of 3 in this piece

    Japan

    Interesting

  5. Our readingAmerica can copy other countries to reach the frontier of what building already costs elsewhere; nobody knows how to push that frontier forward.

    Their wordsThe US has a lot to learn from other countries for how to catch up to the efficient frontier, especially for certain types of construction (ie: transit) and in certain places in the country (ie: expensive coastal metros).

    ↗Stagnant Construction Productivity Is a Worldwide Problemconstruction-physics.com 3rd of 3 in this piece

    America

    Interesting
  6. 6 months earlier

  7. Our readingAmerican cities chose subways over elevated railways knowing they cost two to four times as much, because nobody would live under an el.

    Their wordsCities began to prefer subways to elevateds, despite the fact that they were two to four times as expensive to build as elevated trains.

    ↗Why we stopped building subways cheaplyworksinprogress.news 1st of 3 in this piece

    America

    Interesting

  9. Our readingCut and cover is still often the cheapest way to build a subway and rich countries have abandoned it anyway, because the disruption is no longer tolerated.

    Their wordsCut and cover will sometimes be the best choice from a basic cost-benefit perspective, as will elevated rail, and both are useful to have in the tunnel construction toolbox for that reason.

    ↗Why we stopped building subways cheaplyworksinprogress.news 2nd of 3 in this piece

    Interesting

  11. Our readingThe binding constraint on building anything in America is permitting and litigation, not money.

    Their wordsPolitical costs and civic opposition will often make a technology unviable regardless of how the dollars and cents add up.

    ↗Why we stopped building subways cheaplyworksinprogress.news 3rd of 3 in this piece

    Americapermitting

    Interesting
  12. 7 months earlier

  13. Our readingThe high-purity quartz of Spruce Pine is a real chokepoint in chipmaking, but not an irreplaceable one.

    Their wordsSpruce Pine quartz isn’t quite an irreplaceable linchpin in semiconductor manufacturing.

    ↗Does All Semiconductor Manufacturing Depend on Spruce Pine Quartz?construction-physics.com 1st of 2 in this piece

    semiconductors

    Interesting
  14. 2 months earlier

  15. Our readingAmerican shipbuilding capacity has collapsed to a rounding error beside China's.

    Their wordsThe U.S. Navy estimates that China’s shipbuilding capacity is 232 times our own.

    ↗Why Can't the U.S. Build Ships?construction-physics.com 1st of 8 in this piece

    ChinaAmerica

    Interesting

  17. Our readingAmerican shipbuilding has been uncompetitive for a century; it is not a recent decline.

    Their wordsThe situation we face today, with U.S. ships costing at least twice as much to build as ships built elsewhere, is not a recent development; it’s been the norm for at least the past 100 years.

    ↗Why Can't the U.S. Build Ships?construction-physics.com 2nd of 8 in this piece

    America

    Interesting

  19. Our readingWartime shipbuilding surges have never left America with a commercial shipbuilding industry afterwards.

    Their wordsBut the U.S. again failed to transform its enormous shipbuilding effort into a successful commercial shipbuilding industry.

    ↗Why Can't the U.S. Build Ships?construction-physics.com 3rd of 8 in this piece

    America

    Interesting

  21. Our readingInventing a manufacturing technology and building a competitive industry on it are separate achievements, and America has repeatedly done only the first.

    Their wordsBut in turning these innovations into competitive industries, America has come up short.

    ↗Why Can't the U.S. Build Ships?construction-physics.com 4th of 8 in this piece

    Americainnovation

    Interesting

  23. Our readingWhat has kept American shipbuilding uncompetitive is the high cost of its inputs, above all labour and steel.

    Their wordsThe first is the high cost of inputs, particularly labor and steel.

    ↗Why Can't the U.S. Build Ships?construction-physics.com 5th of 8 in this piece

    America

    Interesting

  25. Our readingCommercial shipbuilding keeps moving to whichever country has the cheapest labour, and America has never been that country.

    Their wordsShipbuilding is labor intensive, and we see a repeated pattern of it moving to countries with low-cost labor: from Britain to Japan, then to Korea, then to China.

    ↗Why Can't the U.S. Build Ships?construction-physics.com 6th of 8 in this piece

    ChinaAmericaJapan

    Interesting

  27. Our readingWhether a country builds ships well comes down to whether it actually wants to compete internationally, and America never has.

    Their wordsThe U.S., on the other hand, never appears to have been strongly motivated to make its shipbuilding industry an international success.

    ↗Why Can't the U.S. Build Ships?construction-physics.com 7th of 8 in this piece

    America

    Interesting

  29. Our readingSheltering an industry from competition is not the same as making it competitive, and American maritime policy has only ever done the first.

    Their wordsShipbuilding policies have long been much more focused on sheltering the industry from competition rather than driving to make it successful.

    ↗Why Can't the U.S. Build Ships?construction-physics.com 8th of 8 in this piece

    America

    Interesting
  30. 3 months earlier

  31. Our readingAvailable power, not land or capital, is what now limits how many data centres get built.

    Their wordsIn particular, operating a data center requires large amounts of electricity, and available power is fast becoming the binding constraint on data center construction.

    ↗How to Build an AI Data Centerconstruction-physics.com 1st of 5 in this piece

    data centersenergy

    Interesting

  33. Our readingData centres and the grid that feeds them run on incompatible clocks: one is a two-year project, the other a multi-decade investment.

    Their wordsUtility companies see major electrical infrastructure as a long-term investment to be built in response to sustained demand growth.

    ↗How to Build an AI Data Centerconstruction-physics.com 2nd of 5 in this piece

    data centersenergyinfrastructure

    Interesting

  35. Our readingAir cooling has run out of headroom for AI racks, so liquid cooling is now a requirement rather than an upgrade.

    Their wordsConventional air cooling is likely limited to around 20 to 30 kilowatt racks, perhaps 50 kilowatts if rear heat exchangers are used.

    ↗How to Build an AI Data Centerconstruction-physics.com 3rd of 5 in this piece

    Interesting

  37. Our readingThe efficiency gains that kept data-centre electricity use flat for a decade are largely spent, so new demand now arrives as new power demand.

    Their wordsBut many of these gains have already been achieved: the best data centers already use just 10% of their electricity for cooling and other non-IT equipment.

    ↗How to Build an AI Data Centerconstruction-physics.com 5th of 5 in this piece

    data centersenergy

    Interesting
  38. 5 weeks earlier

  39. Our readingThe same law that made chips cheaper made the factories that produce them enormously more expensive.

    Their wordsThese enormous costs are ultimately due to the same factor that has steadily driven down the cost of semiconductors: Moore’s Law, the observation that the number of components on an integrated circuit tends to double every two years.

    ↗How to Build a $20 Billion Semiconductor Fabconstruction-physics.com 1st of 7 in this piece

    semiconductors

    Interesting

  41. Our readingFabs take roughly a third longer to build in the United States than in Asia, largely because of environmental review.

    Their wordsFab construction time in the US has increased from just over 650 days on average in the 1990s to over 900 days on average in the 2010s, compared to around 600-700 days in Asian countries, in part because of increasingly stringent environmental review processes.

    ↗How to Build a $20 Billion Semiconductor Fabconstruction-physics.com 2nd of 7 in this piece

    America

    Interesting

  43. Our readingA semiconductor fab is mostly its tools; the building around them is the cheap part.

    Their wordsRoughly 70-80% of the cost of a new fab will be the process tools that go in it.

    ↗How to Build a $20 Billion Semiconductor Fabconstruction-physics.com 3rd of 7 in this piece

    semiconductors

    Interesting

  45. Our readingLithography machines alone cost about as much as the entire building put up to house them.

    Their wordsThe cost of lithography machines is often estimated as 20% of the cost of a new fab, which means that lithography tools can cost as much as the entire fab facility itself.

    ↗How to Build a $20 Billion Semiconductor Fabconstruction-physics.com 4th of 7 in this piece

    Interesting

  47. Our readingEvery new process node makes a fab about 30 per cent more expensive to build than the one before it.

    Their wordsFor modern semiconductor fabs, each new process node increases fab cost by about 30%.

    ↗How to Build a $20 Billion Semiconductor Fabconstruction-physics.com 5th of 7 in this piece

    semiconductors

    Interesting

  49. Our readingThe chip industry split into fabless designers and a handful of foundries because fabs got too expensive to own, not because anyone chose that structure.

    Their wordsBut as fab costs increased, it became more and more burdensome for manufacturers to operate cutting edge manufacturing facilities due to the high costs, and fewer manufacturers had the production volume to spread those costs over.

    ↗How to Build a $20 Billion Semiconductor Fabconstruction-physics.com 6th of 7 in this piece

    Interesting

  51. Our readingA semiconductor fab costs what it costs because it is a mass-production factory that has to hold atomic precision around the clock.

    Their wordsThe second is that producing semiconductors requires almost unfathomable levels of precision.

    ↗How to Build a $20 Billion Semiconductor Fabconstruction-physics.com 7th of 7 in this piece

    semiconductors

    Interesting
  52. 4 weeks earlier

  53. Our readingFor most American housing the largest cost is putting up the physical building, not the land it sits on or the rules attached to that land.

    Their wordsDiscussions of housing policy often focus on issues of zoning, regulation, and other supply restrictions which manifest as increased land prices, but for most American housing, the largest cost comes from building the physical structure itself.

    ↗What Makes Housing So Expensive?construction-physics.com 1st of 4 in this piece

    Americahousing

    Interesting

  55. Our readingA house is built by trades that barely coordinate with each other, which is what makes housing cheap to design and almost impossible to redesign.

    Their wordsWhat is different about construction is the level of coordination that takes place: whereas in a car everything is carefully designed to tightly integrate together, in housing construction the work can be done (and often is) with surprisingly little coordination between the various trades.

    ↗What Makes Housing So Expensive?construction-physics.com 2nd of 4 in this piece

    housing

    Interesting

  57. Our readingBuilding materials are already about as cheap as civilisation knows how to make them, so cheaper materials are not where housing savings will come from.

    Their wordsBulk building materials are already mass-produced in factories, and are among the cheapest materials civilization is capable of producing.

    ↗What Makes Housing So Expensive?construction-physics.com 3rd of 4 in this piece

    housing

    Interesting

  59. Our readingIt is only in dense cities that land dominates the price of a home, and there the land is expensive because of the rules limiting what can be built on it.

    Their wordsIt’s only in dense urban areas that the cost of land begins to dominate the cost of new housing, driven by regulatory and zoning restrictions that limit how much housing can be built in a given area.

    ↗What Makes Housing So Expensive?construction-physics.com 4th of 4 in this piece

    housing

    Interesting
  60. 23 months earlier

  61. Our readingYou cannot infer a housing shortage from how much a country is building, because how much it needs to build changes with its demography.

    Their wordsIf there’s one thing to take away from this essay, it's that you can’t infer a housing shortage by looking at housing construction rates in isolation.

    ↗Is There a Housing Shortage or Not?construction-physics.com 1st of 6 in this piece

    housing

    Interesting

  63. Our readingHow much a metro builds relative to its population growth does not predict its rents; across the hundred largest US metros the correlation is essentially zero.

    Their wordsThere is essentially zero correlation - the metros with the largest rent increases had added population / added housing ratios no different than metros with smaller rent increases.

    ↗Is There a Housing Shortage or Not?construction-physics.com 3rd of 6 in this piece

    housing

    Interesting

  65. Our readingMost apparent trends in American housing are the Bay Area in disguise: a handful of outlier metros drive the correlations people quote.

    Their wordsIn general, housing trends are largely driven by a small number of outlier metros.

    ↗Is There a Housing Shortage or Not?construction-physics.com 6th of 6 in this piece

    Americahousing

    Interesting
  66. 10 months earlier

  67. Our readingThe person who specifies a new building system carries all its risk and none of its reward, a reverse moral hazard that keeps construction innovation out.

    Their wordsIn many cases, the person specifying a new system won’t capture the upside from actually using it - they’ll be under a sort of reverse moral hazard, where the benefits accrue to the rest of the project team, but the risks will accrue only to them.

    ↗Why It's Hard to Innovate in Constructionconstruction-physics.com 2nd of 3 in this piece

    innovation

    Interesting

  69. Our readingBuilders reject new building systems rationally: a change to the process raises the odds of a catastrophic overrun by more than the innovation can save.

    Their wordsA new or innovative system that involves changes to the process thus incurs a significant risk penalty that would likely exceed the expected benefits of the innovation.

    ↗Why It's Hard to Innovate in Constructionconstruction-physics.com 3rd of 3 in this piece

    innovation

    Interesting