construction-physics.com

The Quay, Olaveaga, Bilbao by Luis Paret y Alcazar, via WikiArt. Welcome to the reading list, a weekly roundup of news and links related to buildings, infrastructure, and industrial technology. This week we look at permitting reform prediction markets, ASML’s lack of European sales, a California distributed power plant, Starlink as a planetary barometer, and more. Roughly 2/3rds of the reading list is paywalled, so for full access become a paid subscriber.

Soap Bubbles by Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin, via WikiArt. Welcome to the reading list, a weekly roundup of news and links related to buildings, infrastructure, and industrial technology. This week we look at AirBnB’s housing accelerator, rising steel prices, a resurgence of US coal power, low-head dams, and more. Roughly 2/3rds of the reading list is paywalled, so for full access become a paid subscriber.

If you’re reading this, there’s a very good chance you’ve seen this famous image of three iterations of SpaceX’s Raptor rocket engine. The Raptor engine was developed for SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft (the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy use the Merlin engine); it was first test-fired in 2016, first flew on Starhopper in 2019, and first flew on a Starship prototype in 2020 and on the full Starship stack in 2023.

The Iron Bridge (View of Frankfurt) by Max Beckmann, via WikiArt. Welcome to the reading list, a weekly roundup of news and links related to buildings, infrastructure, and industrial technology. This week we look at city permitting speeds, more efficient ground source heat pump drilling, an Amazon Air crash in Miami, cooling paint, and more. Roughly 2/3rds of the reading list is paywalled, so for full access become a paid subscriber.

Construction is famously labor intensive: direct labor makes up close to 50% of the cost of constructing a new single-family home in the US, compared to around 6 to 8% of the cost of manufacturing a car. Unsurprisingly, there’s long been interest in automating the construction process to reduce the amount of labor required, and therefore the cost of housing.

Spring Waters by Vilhelms Purvitis, via WikiArt. Welcome to the reading list, a weekly roundup of news and links related to buildings, infrastructure, and industrial technology. This week we look at SpaceX’s turbine blade factory, Fervo’s deal with Google, Delhi’s cheap metro, why recycling is overrated, and more. Roughly 2/3rds of the reading list is paywalled, so for full access become a paid subscriber.

This is my third and final essay looking at the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, and how it’s likely to affect housing supply. As I’ve noted in my previoustwo essays, this is a sprawling piece of legislation, with 59 sections spread across 12 different “titles.” So far we’ve looked at Titles I, II, and III, which together contain 24 individual sections. In this post, I’ll look at the remaining nine titles of the package.

Morning in the Tropics by Frederic Edwin Church, via WikiArt. Welcome to the reading list, a weekly roundup of news and links related to buildings, infrastructure, and industrial technology. This week we look at sinking London homes, US magnesium manufacturing, the World Humanoid Robot games, catastrophic flooding in Nepal, and more. Roughly 2/3rds of the reading list is paywalled, so for full access become a paid subscriber. New home sales are down 6.3% year over year.

The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is the largest crude oil storage facility in the world. It’s capable of storing 714 million barrels of oil, slightly less than 10% of the US’s annual oil consumption. Built in response to OAPEC’s 1973 oil embargo, the SPR was created to insulate the US from oil supply shocks: to make up for shortfalls and prevent steep price increases should oil imports be interrupted.

View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds, by Jacob van Ruisdael, via WikiArt. Welcome to the reading list, a weekly roundup of news and links related to buildings, infrastructure, and industrial technology. This week we look at Los Angeles’ ADUs, electrical transformer manufacturing, gas turbine power plants, how water in the Colorado River is used, and more. Roughly 2/3rds of the reading list is paywalled, so for full access become a paid subscriber.