The One-Off. The industry efficiency walked past.

Cars, chips, and light bulbs got dramatically cheaper over the last century. Buildings did not. Efficiency comes from making the same thing over and over, and construction produces a new design on a new site every time. The problem is not lazy builders. It is a product that refuses to standardise.

• Big projects overrun for a predictable reason: the plan is an optimistic story rather than a base rate. The better question is how similar projects actually finished.
• The projects that land on time tend to be modular and rehearsed. Slow, careful planning, then fast and repetitive building. Think it slow, build it fast.