March 17, 2025 • 48 mins
A revolution is brewing in the housing industry, and it's coming from an unexpected source – Zuru, the New Zealand toy company that's now setting its sights on disrupting how we build homes. Their ambitious AI platform called "Dreamcatcher" promises to deliver fully customizable houses for as little as $500 per square meter, a fraction of current construction costs.
What makes this potential game-changer so fascinating is the comprehensive approach Zuru is taking. While most prefabrication systems still rely on standard designs and external supply chains, Zuru plans to manufacture every component in-house. From structural elements to finishes and fixtures, their vertically integrated model aims to eliminate the inefficiencies and markups that plague traditional construction.
The Dreamcatcher platform itself represents a significant departure from conventional architectural software. Built on technology similar to game engines rather than clunky CAD programs, it allows designers to experiment freely while the AI handles technical aspects like structural requirements and building code compliance. The system provides real-time cost calculations, making the often opaque world of construction pricing transparent and accessible.
This approach raises provocative questions about the future of architectural practice and the building industry. Will this democratize good design, making quality architecture available to average homebuyers? How will traditional builders and suppliers respond to this potential disruption? Could this be the "Tesla moment" for housing that finally forces the industry to embrace innovation?
While Zuru's system is still in the prototype stage, with actual on-site implementation yet to be proven, the potential implications for addressing housing affordability are too significant to ignore. As construction costs continue to rise globally, technologies that fundamentally rethink how we design and build might be exactly what we need to solve one of society's most persistent challenges.
Curious about how AI and mass customization might transform your future home? Listen to our full discussion about this fascinating intersection of technology, design, and manufacturing that could change how we think about housing forever.
https://zuru.tech/
0:48 - Parrot Dog Partnership Announcement
1:12 - Introduction to Zuru's Housing Revolution
5:29 - Dreamcatcher: AI-Driven Design
9:44 - Mass Customization vs Traditional Architecture
19:47 - Cost Implications and Affordable Housing
31:12 - Industry Disruption and Future Challenges
43:57 - Automation and the Future of Building
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sam Brown (00:00):
Hello DPP listeners.
We are only one episode intothe 2025 season, but we have
some bloody exciting news toshare with you guys.
Great design and great beerhave something in common keeping
things simple and approachable.
That's why this year, designPrinciples is going to be
brought to you by Parrot DogBrewery.
(00:21):
Born in 2011 out of a love forgood beer, by three guys called
Matt Kinda, similar to the DPP,but we were born in 2024 by
three guys not called Matt Fromtheir brewery in Lyle Bay,
wellington.
Parrot Dog crafts award-winningbrews that are as easy to enjoy
as they are to love, brewed,packaged and distributed under
(00:42):
one roof.
Every drop reflects theircommitment to quality and
simplicity.
Just like Parrot Dog makescraft beer more approachable,
we're here to simplify the worldof design, bringing fresh ideas
and exciting conversations toeveryone.
We're beyond stoked to have thelocal support from the place
where the idea for the pod wasconceived.
So next time you're after abeer, keep it simple.
(01:05):
Keep a parrot dog Nice.
Ben Sutherland (01:12):
Welcome back to the Design Principles podcast.
Sam's got a beer in his hands,so buckle up, because this
episode is going to be a ripper.
Uh, so what are we talkingabout today?
(01:33):
Automation, mass customization.
Yeah, I was listening to a thisother podcast one of my usuals,
I can't remember which one oneof them and it had the Zuru guy
on there.
So Zuru is a New Zealand-ownedcompany, or the three founders,
the Mulberries up here inAuckland, are from New Zealand,
(01:55):
but I believe they basicallywent to China and started
manufacturing kids' toys andsome of their main hits were
like the uh, what are they?
Sam Brown (02:08):
the blow up the multi water balloon the multi water
balloon.
Ben Sutherland (02:12):
Yeah, that was apparently.
Sam Brown (02:13):
That was a ripper one , together ones as well I think
so yeah, yeah well the ones wecan fill up like a hundred at
once, and then they just likepinch together and had lots of
fun with those with the nephewsover summer.
Ben Sutherland (02:26):
Yeah, exactly.
I guess, though they learnedhow to manufacture, so now
they're getting into housemanufacturing.
Well, they probably have beenfor quite some time, but now
their tests are almost complete,so it's looking like they're
going to start to open it up tothe public and start
manufacturing some of thesehouses mass customized houses.
(02:49):
So I thought it was quiteinteresting to have a chat about
.
You know, maybe the futureimpact Is that for the New
Zealand market it's actuallyglobal.
So currently they're situated inItaly, in Modena, in modena
just super random place to belocated.
I know they have like a factoryover there for the, the kids,
(03:12):
toys and that sort of thing, soperhaps it's like something to
do with that.
So, yeah, currently they're initaly, but basically they are
opening this big facility wherethey are looking to manufacture,
or mass customize manufactureand mass customize houses, and
the way they're doing it is theyhave been working a lot on like
an AI model they call DreamCatcher and basically, like they
(03:37):
are, you know, it's a free forall software, so designers or
anyone can kind of go on thereand play around with a building
and stretch it, come up withtheir own unique designs and
then essentially press print orpress play, and that information
gets sent directly to thefactory where it gets mass
(03:57):
produced and sent to site.
Sam Brown (04:00):
So quite interesting when you say it's sensitive.
I've got, I've got a lot ofquestions.
Ben Sutherland (04:06):
This is all good , it's hard to just like talk
about the whole thing at all atonce, so ask some questions,
please first one I mean this is.
Sam Brown (04:16):
I mean, where do I start?
But like first one, this kindof harkens back to the episode
in the first season of the podabout AI and is this coming for
our jobs?
Do you see that?
Or is it more of again in thevein of that, that original AI
discussion, a bit more of anarchitectural caddy or a
building industry like caddy, oris it kind of superseding the
(04:40):
need for anybody?
Ben Sutherland (04:41):
so I think I think the idea at this point in
time is that it's meant to bemore of like a supportive role
for the designers.
So you know, architects cankind of have their own little
shop built off the back of itand it's meant to help you get
things through.
So it's got every single localcode in the world built into it
(05:03):
already, into the large languagemodel, yeah, exactly.
Or into Dreamcatcher.
So it's meant to like assistyou in what you can and can't do
, and it's been trained like ona lot of architects.
So I guess there is an elementof like plagiarism, as I guess
Gerard would put it.
But I guess from theirperspective it but the I guess
(05:24):
what.
From their perspective, it'sthe builder that it's replacing,
right, they'd want tomanufacture these panels or mass
produce these components andsend it to site.
I don't, I don't believe theyintend on actually having people
on site doing the assembly.
So I guess like that's what thebuilder would become and I
don't believe that they intendon they perhaps will have like
(05:48):
some standard designs, but theystill want people to build the
actual customizable or customdesigns and that sort of thing.
So I think like there's stillan element of like requiring a
designer and a builder, but theywant to kind of like take that
middle chunk and fabricate thecomponents.
(06:09):
Like every single material willbe manufactured in house, so
every component is going to belike produced on site.
So there's no sort of upstream,downstream reliance on other
components, and so that's kindof where they believe they can
make like huge cost savings andefficiencies and production and
(06:30):
so like some of their costs fortheir products.
They say that they're gettingit down to, like you know, 450,
500 a square meter, jesus.
So it's significant differencereally, but that's probably not
including any on-site stuff.
Sam Brown (06:46):
I was gonna say how much is that?
Caveated with a lot of stuff,but still, yes, still, it's
insane, I guess in terms of likethat question on uh, you know,
you design something and pressprint.
What are you print?
Like printing like what isbeing produced in the factory.
Is it essentially like wallfloor, roof, like assembly
(07:07):
cassettes?
Are they like 3d printing shitlike what's what's the outcome?
Or is it like traditionalconstruction, like what's what
are they?
What are these houses made from?
Is it cardboard?
Ben Sutherland (07:19):
there's.
There's not a huge amount ofmaterial information, but from
you know, there is every singlecomponent down to like light
fitting switches, concretestructures, like it's got its
own kind of structuralengineering element.
So a lot of it is just kind ofstandard kind of timber,
concrete and then, like I thinkthere's like a materials that
(07:42):
they have been developingin-house.
I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm just not sure exactly what
the actual materials are, butit seems relatively normal from
my understanding anyway, like ifyou go onto the wazoo website
you can kind of have a littleplay and like everything that
appears to just be like concreteand timber and metal and that
(08:06):
sort of thing very boxyaesthetic yeah, it's very
contemporary modernism yeah,contemporary yeah, but you can
kind of see where they're goingwith the whole.
Sam Brown (08:16):
Keep everything else in house and maximize or
capitalize on the manufacturingside so from the manufacturing
side, like are they do you talkabout them having a factory in
moderna and italy at the momentand then them being a new
zealand company?
Like are they, would they belooking at having like pilot
factories internationally?
Like, would new zealand have afactory?
(08:37):
So if you're designing abuilding here and pressing print
, it's getting made locally oris it getting made offshore and
then shipping?
You know, just from my, myperspective obviously, that
whole embodied carbonconsideration and all that sort
of stuff.
Like is it?
Is it a little bit more closerto home or are you having to
like still import all this stufffrom europe or wherever?
Ben Sutherland (08:59):
well, I suspect that it'll start off in one
place and then it'll be likebased on demand, right.
So like if there was likecountries that fully embraced it
and it made sense to havesomething more local, then I
would imagine they'll start tolocalize.
But I once again like they haveliterally just finished
prototyping all these buildings.
(09:19):
I don't even think that theyhave sorted out exactly how
they're going to be shippingthese around the world and what
their on-site stuff is actuallygoing to look like.
So I suspect there's like afair way to go in the
development.
Still pretty much in beta stage, yeah, but they're moving fast,
(09:40):
you know so, I don't know, Ijust think the concept's quite
interesting.
Fast, you know so, I don't know, I just think the concept's
quite interesting.
And if, if it does kind of takeoff, well, the question is like
, will it take off?
And do we want it to take off?
And like, if it does take off,what does that look like for us?
You know, like it's all, it'sall kind of interesting.
Sam Brown (10:00):
A couple of key questions there, and gerard,
jump in because you've had yourthoughts on this as well.
But, like you know, we'vediscussed this a few times on
the pod.
But they're like you knowarchitecture being accessible to
everybody good architecture atleast, or only quality building
being accessible to everybodythis seems like the golden
ticket.
Answer something like this Ifyou can build for man, if you
(10:22):
can even build for half theprice that we are now like,
let's say, you can build forhalf the price that we are now,
let's say, you can build for2,000 a square meter, that's a
huge win.
They're saying you can buildfor what?
Do you say?
500 to 600 square meters?
That's insanity.
Imagine the affordable housingsolutions you could come up with
.
Ben Sutherland (10:41):
Well, that's a good point.
Maybe this kind of thing willactually just end up targeting
that more affordable housingrealm.
I don't, I can't really see itimpacting the architectural,
which is like the classic toptwo percent that can actually
afford an architect.
You know, maybe like a smallportion of them will actually go
(11:05):
to something like this, but Ican't actually see it.
Sam Brown (11:08):
You say that, ben, but I think it's a misnomer in
that I mean like, no, it's not amisnomer, it's, it is.
It's a commonality thatarchitecture is generally like
reserved for people that canafford it or, you know, the
higher owners.
But I don't think that thatshould preclude architecture, a
good architecture, from beingavailable to everybody.
And this seems like a mechanismthat would actually make good
(11:29):
architecture available toeverybody, because we could, you
could still design, you know,bespoke, interesting things that
aren't as carbon copy or youknow, as like a gj gardener home
or whatever, but at anaffordable price point, because
you're leveraging this like hugemachine for want of a better
term behind you to be able toproduce these houses, you know,
(11:52):
but you've still got designfreedom, because that's what it
appeared.
I had a play around on thewebsite.
That's what it appears like tome is that, like there's still
that sort of promising and again, like we've said, this is very
much in the beta stage, butthey're sort of promising that
you can design whatever the hellyou want and they'll print it,
you know, which is prettyexciting, to be honest.
Ben Sutherland (12:13):
Yeah, it is interesting and just going back
to your carbon emission comment,like it's quite sophisticated
to the point where you knowenvironmentally everything is
tracked, so everything they dodo, especially like you can
imagine manufacturing in afactory, so much easier to
actually understand whatefficiency, yeah, yeah, or where
you know the carbon, you knowwhere the carbon emissions
(12:36):
actually are and what they'rekind of amounting to over the
course of their life cycle, andso that there's that.
And then there's also like thisum, what what they're calling?
Or I can't remember whatthey're calling it, but it's
like a post occupancy element toit as well.
So basically, yeah, it looksafter your house and tracks
(12:57):
everything and monitors it aswell, even after construction,
which is quite interesting.
It really does seem likethey've taken a really
innovative approach and done alot of research and tackled a
lot of these quite big problems.
Gerard Dombroski (13:14):
Yeah, like if we jump back to a bigger
overview.
I think something that needs tobe clarified a little bit is it
seems that they're like kind ofencompassing the whole spectrum
of the process, like right fromlike the ai creating what is it
like?
They're creating their ownsoftware which would replace,
like your traditional cadsoftware.
(13:34):
So I guess you're like alreadybuilt into a system where you're
designing within theirparameters and their tools.
Ben Sutherland (13:40):
Is that is that kind of where we're yeah, that's
right, and they're using likemore, I think, like unreal
engine, more like game software,as opposed to like revit or
archicad or autocad, which is,to be fair, quite outdated and a
little bit clunky, does the job, obviously, but it's not the
(14:01):
most efficient.
They're're not the mostefficient tools, that's for sure
.
Sam Brown (14:05):
They're not the most efficient tools for concept and
imaginative delivery, but theyare efficient at ultimately what
we need to produce, and that'sdetailed working, drawings and
documentation.
How does this process?
Obviously, you mentioned thatthey're aware of or the large
(14:28):
language model at least is awareof certain jurisdictions and
like building code requirementsand standards and all those sort
of things.
But, like, how is thatdocumentation process being
tackled if they're usingprograms like unreal engine?
Ben Sutherland (14:41):
yeah, so they're taking more of like a lego
approach, I guess, where it'slike more like a kit of parts
and an assembly right.
Uh, the q, the qa is done withai, so that's kind of like
checked as you go.
So is all the engineeringautomatically outputs a part, a
(15:03):
working drawing set based onlike requirements from the local
governance or council orwhatever, and it like
categorizes what, who basicallyit understands where the order
comes from and what that council.
It's got every council kind ofscale ranked on like a scale
from like hard to easy I'd loveto love to see that chart those
(15:29):
are like the complexity based on, I guess, like based on its own
experience, because it's justlearning as it goes as well,
right, and so like yeah, I thinkthat's kind of fascinating and
I would imagine like, yeah,surely new zealand especially,
we've got earthquakes as well.
We'll be, uh, we'll be, rightup there.
Well, like you get ridiculous.
Gerard Dombroski (15:48):
You get ridiculous RFIs anyway.
So, like if it's interactingwith, like an AI that's sent it
in a set of drawings to do that,you only can set off, as
they're like battling away well,maybe for the first couple.
Ben Sutherland (16:00):
Surely it'll learn.
Though that's the whole thing,though.
Just going back to what Sam wassaying, like, surely we all at
least agree that thedocumentation is the part of the
process that we should haveautomated yeah, I agree, I think
to it well, I mean, that's thedream right.
Sam Brown (16:15):
Like if we were all.
We're too.
You know us independently.
We're too small to be able tolike put the time into
developing these things.
But I'd imagine, imagine largerarchitecture firms, big ones,
global ones, and even the biggerones in New Zealand.
I think they'd be kiddingthemselves or missing the point
of the future if they're notexploring already or developing
(16:37):
their own large language modelsto cover documentation.
They'll have more than enoughbackground data to be able to
like feed that into a model andand get it to start producing
working drawings shortly maybe.
Ben Sutherland (16:50):
But on one hand I know one really connect,
collects data, and on the otherhand, the price of like cheap
labor is probably still toocheap to actually.
You know, they can just getlike a bunch of students and is
on a cheap hourly rate to pumpall this documentation out and
do all the tedious work.
So they might not even have,you know, they might not feel
(17:12):
like they need to yet, or I'mnot sure if that scale, that
cost versus my camera's justgone all crazy.
There it is.
Yeah, I'm not sure if that kindof threshold has been crossed
yet, but yeah, it is reallyinteresting'm not sure if that
kind of threshold has beencrossed yet, but yeah, it is
really interesting.
And I want, I like to thinkthey are.
But I guess, like there's alsothe part of me that thinks like,
oh, you know, it's really goodlearning for the younger
(17:35):
generation of you know, the, theyoung architecture designers to
you know, cut the teeth on.
Sam Brown (17:42):
I guess, like well, that's a very important point,
ben.
I guess, like there's alwaysthat this is that's a very
important point being.
I'd like to dive into that alittle bit more because you're
you're so right, like thedesigners or students or grads,
people, inexperienced peoplethat are finding their feet or
building up their skill set inthe architectural profession, if
(18:03):
they're coming into the gamewhere they can basically design
whatever they want and get acomputer or get an ai model to
detail it at all, how much doyou reckon or do you guys both
reckon that the architecturewill suffer because you're not
like I think, that reallysuccessful moments in
architecture are obviously theyhave like a high level of
(18:25):
creativity and thoughtfulness tothem, but like their real
successes and how they arerealized, like how those, how
those are detailed successfully,like particular junction this
is me personally but likeparticular junctions and like
the satisfaction of workingthrough a problem, solving it
and how much that influences thearchitectural outcome.
Is that going to be lost on boththe designers and therefore
(18:49):
like architectural outcomesmoving forward, because
everyone's just going to be likehere's a scribble on a piece of
paper, ai print this for me andthey're not actually
understanding like the nuancesof certain aspects of the of the
building yeah, well, that's aninteresting like we've seen that
degradation over the yearsalready.
Gerard Dombroski (19:07):
You look at like older architects, like your
franks and who's he all sits,like we used to use to design
everything like I've mentionedthis all the time just because
it's funny, but frank lordwright, designing somebody's
slippers once, like the level ofdetail that god went into was
like extreme and like you'velost, we've lost that already.
(19:29):
Like when was the last time wesaw somebody do a custom light
switch?
Or I was into we see customdoor handles, maybe on like the
front door, but like man, thisstuff was happening.
Ben Sutherland (19:40):
Like everywhere should we have ever had it?
I mean, like building hasalways been super inefficient,
probably due to that level ofcustomization.
No one like look at a car,right, no one actually knows,
other than the mechanic, how acar is put together.
And if you think of like thebuilding more of like a product,
(20:02):
which obviously these guys are,then it does, it becomes like
irrelevant.
You're like yes, there aregoing to be like a team of
builders that know andunderstand it, but do we?
Gerard Dombroski (20:13):
need.
I'm just asking the questionwhether we're making spec homes.
What's your market like, as arewe.
What would link thisconversation down to answering
one question?
Yes, multiple questions.
Ben Sutherland (20:26):
This literally after you have just said that.
I think, like the literalquestion is is this architecture
, right?
Wow, I don't.
And now I'm questioning like isthis?
But is this just like?
Is this building a product andhousing people?
Is this architecture?
(20:47):
I don't know.
Yeah, I'll probably argue it'smore architecture.
Is a gj gardener group homebuilding kind of thing,
architecture?
Sam Brown (20:56):
I think I think it's all considered architecture.
There's just varying levels ofyou know, bespoke and quality.
To me, architecture iseverything in the built
environment, be that everythingfrom a you know fence on a
council path, you know, throughto a you know bespoke you know,
through to a dam or a museum orsomething that's all I agree.
Gerard Dombroski (21:18):
I agree it's a lens like because it's our
profession, that's our lens likecertainly going to look at
everything as if it'sarchitecture or in an
architectural light.
But are these guys doing thesame?
Maybe they've clearly put a lotof work into like the
aesthetics and like the visuals,are some really nice forms and
stuff going on, but is it givingsomebody like a fully bespoke
(21:40):
little prop from Gerard therethat's a.
Ben Sutherland (21:42):
Didn't expect that out of the pod today.
Gerard Dombroski (21:46):
You're not far between.
Well, I think architectureoffers like to your client, like
the ability for extreme bespoke, like you get to choose your
own involvement.
It's like one of the books youcan read whichever page you want
in, in whatever order, that allhandmade door handles by
(22:07):
somebody, which is very easybolt-on sort of thing in this
instance.
But I think that the analogysurvives, but are they not not?
Sam Brown (22:18):
not necessarily promising, because I don't think
they quite know what they'redelivering yet.
That's my take.
But are they not kind ofalluding to the fact that you
will have that level ofcustomization?
Gerard Dombroski (22:33):
Yeah, but it's all within parameters.
Sam Brown (22:35):
Yeah, exactly.
But to that point, gerard, isthat not how we're designing now
anyway, because, like you'vejust said, when was the last
time we designed everything downto the client's slippers?
Yeah, except right now we'redoing it really inefficiently.
We are we're doing it reallyinefficiently Most of the time.
We're picking from a catalogueof available materials.
(22:57):
And it's not even justavailable materials.
It's available materials thatbloody councils are going to be
happy signing off on becausethey can't see outside of a tick
box exercise, yeah hard.
You know like, are we notalready pigeonholed as a
profession into that,particularly in New Zealand, I
find, anyway pigeonholed alreadyinto that sort of direction or
(23:18):
into that box.
Gerard Dombroski (23:20):
That's kind of what I was trying to allude to
before direction or into theirblocks.
That's kind of what I wastrying to allude to before.
We've already seen thatdegradation in just suppliers'
offerings.
I guess we have our preferredsuppliers and it's just so easy
to outsource your spec to Resignor Dulux or whatever.
This kind of my intention ofarchitecture is to go down that
(23:42):
route of like extremecustomization.
That's why I have a workshopand like to make strange things
Like I'd like to go down to,like knives and forks and you
know, bowls, plates, handleslights.
Ben Sutherland (23:56):
They might be your biggest competition, mate.
Gerard Dombroski (23:58):
Yeah, my factory at one your biggest
competition, mate.
Ben Sutherland (23:59):
Yeah, my factory at one, you'd buy one robot arm
to help out around the place.
Gerard Dombroski (24:07):
Yeah, buy like a bolt Awesome.
Sam Brown (24:11):
They're not promising that level of detail, are they?
They're really just promising ashell.
Ben Sutherland (24:16):
Yeah.
Gerard Dombroski (24:17):
No, no, I think where I want to go is a
different direction too.
Sam Brown (24:22):
Yeah, I see.
So what you're alluding to ismaintaining the integrity of
architecture, despite this beingan offering in the market.
Gerard Dombroski (24:31):
Yeah, I'm fully okay for this to exist.
I'm like 1,000% for affordablehousing and people being able to
house themselves.
I think it's one of the biggerproblems on earth that needs to
be solved, and if this solves it, then shit bed, it's awesome
yes, it's amazing.
Sam Brown (24:50):
It's amazing initiative, if this is gonna
have that result for sure yeah,but I still like making art
design some slippers yeah, man,you want some slippers, I want
some slippers you know I wantsome slippers, some metal
slippers.
Ben, you said somethinginteresting that's just been
twisting around in the back ofmy head for the last minute, but
you know he talked about carsand how, essentially, what
(25:13):
they're looking to do withhousing is what the auto
industry does, and that youcreate a model of car and you
just pump out 10 000 of thoseand it's super monetarily
efficient because you're justdoing the same thing over and
over and over and over again andit's serving a huge need.
Like you know, a lot of peopleneed a toyota corolla.
That's fantastic.
(25:33):
You can produce it cheaply,it's an affordable car, works,
it'll last forever.
Happy days if we're, if they'relooking at this as a housing
solution.
In that same vein, what you saidwas really interesting is that
only a mechanic really knows howto fix a car, and that's fair.
Obviously you've got somepeople that are, you know, a
little bit more clued up thanothers, but myself, a car has
(25:55):
four wheels and a steering wheeland I drive it from a to b and
that's all I know and care aboutit.
Really is that it's?
Is that an issue with this as ahousing?
B, and that's all I know andcare about it really.
Is that an issue with this as ahousing solution, in that it
becomes too specialised tounderstand how these buildings
are made and thereforemaintenance becomes a problem?
Ben Sutherland (26:14):
Well, you know, just like you have mechanics,
you'll just have builders thatknow how to maintain them right.
It really isn't that hard.
And don maintain them right.
It really isn't that hard.
And don't forget like buildingactually isn't that hard.
Cars are probably a lot moretechnical.
Sam Brown (26:29):
There's not actually a huge amount of builders.
Ben Sutherland (26:32):
There's not actually I can say this I'm a
qualified builder, so take that,take that world, and actually
there's not a huge amount ofcomponents, right, it's just
that a lot bigger.
There's a lot more laborinvolved.
But, like, there's not a hugeamount of components, right,
it's just a lot bigger, there'sa lot more labor involved, but
there's not that many components.
If there's any product thatcould be mass customized,
essentially housing is kind ofone of the ones that could make
(26:54):
sense.
Sam Brown (26:55):
I totally agree.
Ben Sutherland (26:56):
But think about how much resistance or how long
it's taken any form ofprefabrication to really make
tracks or get off the ground innew zealand you know, yeah, but
that's just like electric carsuntil one company comes along
and shows everyone how it's doneand then the whole kind of
market booms.
(27:16):
So you know, this could easilyjust be like a spearheading that
whole.
Sam Brown (27:20):
Are these guys the Tesla of the housing industry?
Ben Sutherland (27:22):
Who knows?
That's the whole thing, though,Like we laugh at this now, but
in a year's time or five years'time, is this going to be
everywhere?
Sam Brown (27:32):
Who knows.
Gerard Dombroski (27:34):
To continue the car analogy, have you heard
of the Hilux Chad?
It's the new Toyota, the newToyota Hilux.
I think it's for new toyotahylux or like I think it's for
indonesia, philippines oh yeah,you're telling me about this,
it's such a beautiful littledude man I want it so bad, but
it's like, but it's illegal.
10 grand, I think, over legalin a lot of countries yeah, so,
(27:56):
like the toyota's, madesomething that's manufactured so
efficiently and so cheaply thatit would just cut the market
out of most utility trucks inmost countries.
Sam Brown (28:08):
And is that why it's banned?
Or is it missing a whole bunchof critical safety features for
many countries?
But these other countries areletting it slide to provide an
affordable solution.
Gerard Dombroski (28:18):
Yeah, I don't know enough about it.
Ben Sutherland (28:20):
It's a Toyota made, so a toyota is better than
a good point it'll last.
Sam Brown (28:25):
We know it'll last forever.
Gerard Dombroski (28:26):
No it'll only last half of forever now let's
say hypothetically, this thing,this technology works out
amazing and undercuts the entiremarket.
Would they just crash theindustry and like what the
government be like?
Ben Sutherland (28:43):
no, why.
Why would they do that?
We've got a housing shortage.
Can you imagine the kickback?
Sam Brown (28:51):
yeah, but the thing is that you know everything's
big business right.
If these guys come in, theytake over the whole market, that
whole.
You know that.
I don't want to get into thepolitics of it, but you know the
whole building industry in newzealand is a industry that's
like, rife with monopolizationand scratching each other's
backs, and you know kickbacksand yeah, exactly, it's, it's,
(29:15):
it's heinous, and so I agreewith what gerard said.
I think there could be hugeresistance to something that's
coming in, because the people onhigh are not going to be able
to get their little bonus fromFletchers or from whoever, maybe
this will finally push them outof there then and everyone will
get what they're after.
Yeah, I mean I think it's Couldbe the best thing for the
(29:36):
industry.
It could be.
I mean it could make all of ussit up a little bit and realize
that there's real competitionout there and that we all have
to sharpen up.
Gerard Dombroski (29:51):
Innovative diet.
Sam Brown (29:52):
Like with the automotive industry, Tesla made
the whole world stand on, watchand go oh shit, we've actually
got to take this EV situationseriously.
Ben Sutherland (30:00):
Yeah, and then I guess like they'd be like
construction companies andarchitecture firms, that
specialty kind of like built offthe back of them.
Only do you know their productsand their assemblies and their
onsite stuff and that sort ofthing.
Gerard Dombroski (30:16):
So I guess, yeah just be another accredited
installer.
Sam Brown (30:20):
It's interesting I mean again, I don't want to keep
going back to the automotiveindustry, but it is a very, very
good parallel.
It's a very you know it's a,you know it's a, it's very
accurate parallel and thatthere's the market for this
affordable um entry-level,mass-produced solution, like
(30:41):
your Toyota Hilux truck thatyou're talking about, gerard,
but there's still a market foryour bespoke Bentleys as well.
So I think this doesn't destroy.
Back to the ultimate question.
I think that we had at the topof the pod is like is this going
to ruin architecture or thebuilding industry?
No, it just changes the field alittle bit, but there's still
(31:01):
space for everybody to operateit'll take a while to get a ride
on the board.
Gerard Dombroski (31:04):
There was that recent one that was the most.
Ben Sutherland (31:12):
Wasn't that one of the most efficient buildings
ever built in new zealand?
Gerard Dombroski (31:18):
talking about different ones.
There's these I'm kidding.
Ben Sutherland (31:21):
It's like the most inefficient building.
It's like what if someone,someone calculated oh what's the
cost per square meter was likesomething outrageous yeah, so
that that system is like beingyou know supposed to be like.
Gerard Dombroski (31:36):
Well, I got two grand two, two and a half a
square meter max and it came inat was it seven or?
Ben Sutherland (31:42):
eight.
I thought it was like 16, ohyeah probably so.
Gerard Dombroski (31:47):
I wonder how much of that was in the factory
versus how much of that was thenew zealand installers just
ramping up the costs.
Yeah, so if it is a product andmost of that's made in china,
then you got a big chunk ofshipping.
Ben Sutherland (32:00):
Oh yeah, no, actually it wasn't that bad.
It was like it cost over$630,000, totaling approximately
$7.6 million for thedevelopment.
Apparently, that's like $3,500per square meter.
Well, that's probably prettygood, there, isn't it?
It said each unit cost $600.
(32:21):
How big were they?
How many squares?
Which means that the wholedevelopment amounted to 2.2
million.
So I'm not sure how many unitsthere were, but that's a lot of
money.
Gerard Dombroski (32:31):
So I think, ultimately it was a system that
promised low square metre ratesand would have been promised to
the Earth and then delivered,and that's to deliver.
Sam Brown (32:40):
So I guess what we're saying here is that this system
, or this zero system, is stillyet to prove itself?
Ben Sutherland (32:50):
Yeah, so they've completed.
Apparently they've nearlyperfected their prototypes have
they built anything.
Sam Brown (32:58):
That's the biggest question.
Ben Sutherland (32:59):
Yeah they've built heaps of buildings in
their factories, but theyhaven't built for a customer and
sent it to site, because that'sthat's the difference.
Sam Brown (33:08):
You can do whatever you like in a vacuum and it will
work in a vacuum.
You put it into the real world.
How well does it operate?
Right, like you know, there's areason.
Prototype cars don't always getmade.
Yeah, but there's steps to it.
Ben Sutherland (33:21):
There's steps to it right.
First you got to like nail themanufacturing, and then you've
got to nail the assembly, andthen it's just the logistical
game after that.
Then you got to nail ittogether then you're not fun
together hey, yo sorry, I justwent full dad mode on you guys.
Gerard Dombroski (33:39):
Yeah, appreciate that.
I'm here for it.
Sam Brown (33:43):
Is there anyone?
We've only talked about onecompany.
Is there anybody challengingthem?
Is anybody else doing the samething?
Apparently, yes.
Right At home, as in NewZealand, or internationally, or
like what's the other, who'stheir?
Ben Sutherland (33:59):
challengers out there.
Well, not in this country,right?
Not really, because they'vesunk hundreds of millions of
dollars into it, and I doubtlike there's anyone in new
zealand, any builders in newzealand that have just like a
low-key, hundreds of millions ofdollars floating around.
But I suspect, like in terms ofthe automation oh sorry, the
(34:21):
dreamcatcher side of things,even like autodesk and desult
systems and that sort of thingare probably doing, you know,
they'll definitely be working onsimilar products like how could
they not right?
Sam Brown (34:35):
well, yeah, I'm surprised that you know wherever
it uses.
I'm surprised that arcadesoftware doesn't have a level of
ai to it already.
Ben Sutherland (34:43):
Yeah, I know have you, have you used, have
you been using um 2025?
Sam Brown (34:49):
no, I usually wait a year until all the bug fixes
have been ironed out before Idownload the latest version it's
so.
Ben Sutherland (34:56):
It's like the first version I've used.
That is like quite a bit it'sthe same, but it's like you know
how, sometimes, like apple goesthrough that process of like
simplifying what all the appslook like and everything, yeah,
and the changing the colors.
They've done that on revit 2025and I'm like what is everything
?
Like everything is like adifferent color and it's like
(35:18):
super simplified.
But there are some goodimprovements, I gotta say, from
what I've seen so far.
Just to get a little bit nerdyon it there, but that's the
trick though that would beawesome.
Sam Brown (35:31):
I'm right here for a new market contender in the uh
can software in the software isso expensive, man they're so
expensive and they're so, toyour point earlier on, they're
so archaic, I guess to a degree.
Gerard Dombroski (35:48):
Like they, really they fundamentally.
Sam Brown (35:50):
I mean haven't changed and I've been using CAD
software for 20 years.
I mean there'll be people outthere, there'll be addicts out
there that have been using CADsoftware for 40 years plus, like
they.
Fundamentally, haven't changedever, yeah, well, another thing
that yeah sorry, no.
No, I was going to say a bit ofparametric, like you know,
(36:12):
parametrics brought in by thelikes of rhino and that sort of
thing, but ultimately they'restill the same thing another
thing that really roughs me upis I'm really I'm quite sure
like new zealand, doesn'tactually new zealand, australia,
like everyone gets differentversions of the software.
Ben Sutherland (36:28):
So there's like things that new zealand version
of revit can't do that others,you know overseas, can do and
that sort of thing and that'salways really annoying yeah
because I I'm like always.
I always use like chat, gvt andthat sort of thing when I'm
stuck and trying to figuresomething out, and then it's
always like so many times it'slike you use the New Zealand
(36:49):
version and you can't do this.
Sam Brown (36:51):
I'm like damn so annoying.
It's like Netflix, right?
You need a VPN for your Revit.
Ben Sutherland (37:00):
Why does us, being a little island nation,
mean that we get shafted on thefunctionalities of Revit as well
?
Sam Brown (37:07):
We're not going to let you guys develop cool shit.
No exactly.
Ben Sutherland (37:13):
They are controlling our growth 100% they
are.
They are They'll have stuffthat has light years ahead, that
they like they'll have likestuff that's a light years ahead
, that they're just kind of dripfeeding the industry that's why
it needs, like somebody needsto come in with like a paradigm
shift yeah, well, that's kind ofwhy like this could be quite
(37:33):
cool, just to like give autodeska bit of a you know, more
competition, that sort of thing.
That'd be quite nice, yeah,like even beyond.
Sam Brown (37:41):
yeah, because I kind of see the success in this thing
not necessarily I think they'vegot so much to prove in the
delivery of an actual builtfinished project, like I think
that's that, despite what yousay being in terms of what
development they're put in, Ithink that there's so much to go
in that space, but where, wherethe success is clearly going to
(38:05):
lie, I think and already youcan see it, I've not played
around with it enough, but youcan even see it on the surface
is in that CAD challengingspectrum or in that realm.
Gerard Dombroski (38:16):
Yeah, is there , somewhere you can play on
their software.
Ben Sutherland (38:22):
I haven't had a good play.
I'm not sure if you candownload Dreamcatcher yet, but
you can have a little play onthe website.
I haven't tried to download it.
Gerard Dombroski (38:32):
I don't know if it's available yet, but it
will be soon, yeah imagine beingable to teach your AI detailer
software your type of details orlike, along with the basic code
.
If it could like, blend in abit more.
Sam Brown (38:48):
I had this discussion with someone at the start of
the year, midway through lastyear coming about a really good
discussion about them about AI,and they were astounded that we
weren't developing largerlanguage models and feeding them
our details and feeding themour annotation systems and all
that sort of stuff and gettingthem to build for us.
Ben Sutherland (39:10):
Yeah, who was that?
What industry were they from?
Banking oh.
Sam Brown (39:16):
And they were saying that all of their focus is on
building large language modelsto do the menial shit that no
one else, that no one reallywants to do.
And that's exactly what we need, ai to do for us as well.
I mean, to that point, though, Istill think that we want to
really dive in and get intrinsicand get bespoke.
You still want to be able tohave that flexibility, but all
(39:38):
those generic things that youneed to deal with, and most of
the time, those that genericshatters, the compliance side of
things well, why is ai notdoing that for?
Ben Sutherland (39:47):
that for us yeah , and so costing as well.
So these guys say you know,because you're flexing your
model and adding variouselements like windows, doors,
materials, that all of thepricing is live as well.
So I mean, like that could bequite interesting.
That's definitely somethingI've played around with a lot in
the past, and not successfully,unfortunately, but always been
(40:11):
an advocate for live pricingyeah, I think that would be.
Sam Brown (40:14):
That's a huge thing.
I find that it's a huge thingfor our industry.
It's a frustration that I haveconstantly is how in the dark we
as architects actually arearound pricing, and even to the
point where suppliers won't giveus or like merchants and stuff
won't actually give us pricinginformation.
(40:34):
Do you guys find that and I'mlike, how are we supposed to
have a handle on how much thingsare going to cost, or how are
we supposed to get a handle ondesign decisions when are going
to cost?
Or how are we supposed to get ahandle on like design decisions
when you actually won't give usa straight?
Ben Sutherland (40:46):
answer I never had that, never had that hustle,
hustle hard, but it just shouldbe easy, right, like we did.
Sam Brown (40:56):
You know, like obviously, like yeah, you can
hustle hard, you can really divedown, you can like press
something for information, butit's usually so reluctant for
like why is there not like aportal for us to just go and be
able to like see the reality ofpricing somewhere?
Gerard Dombroski (41:08):
yeah, you know , different builders have
different prices well, thenthere's.
Sam Brown (41:12):
Another thing.
Ben Sutherland (41:12):
You're right, yeah, but different distributors
have different prices, so a lotof it kind of depends on A the
level of the builder.
So how big the builder is, ifthey're like a one-man band,
obviously they're not putting asmuch product through.
Their turnover is a lot lower,so they're not putting as much
product through thoseplacemakers or your bunnings or
whatever, and so you get smalleris a lot lower, so they're not
(41:33):
putting as much product throughthose you know placemakers or
your bunnings or whatever, andso like you get smaller
discounts, whereas if you're alarge manufacturing group home
builder, basically you get a lotbetter discounts and that and
rates and then and then, everysingle bunnings and placemakers
and yada, yada yada offerdifferent rates as well.
(41:53):
So it's pretty much impossibleto have the same.
Sam Brown (41:56):
Well, that's exactly the thing and that's why that's
why it's such a frustration whenpeople try and compare to build
projects.
Even in this, you know let'ssay, take new zealand, for
example, I built.
You know, if you buildsomething in the north island
versus you build something inthe south island, exactly the
same they will cost differentamounts of money.
Ben Sutherland (42:17):
So it's so hard for like cost parity in the
industry you know, yeah, butthat's just the market, right,
you know the market governs it,you know.
So it's hard to say because,like in South Island, like a lot
of the products that you usemight not be as readily
available as North Island.
Sam Brown (42:39):
So there's just so many contributing factors,
totally, but that's what I,that's what I love about this,
like zuru solution is thatyou're not.
You're not being dictated byyour locale, you're not being
dictated by whether you're usinga group home builder or a one
band you know one man, band oranything like.
The price that you're seeing iswhat it's costing and that
gives so much confidence andsurety to the process, which I
think is so necessary,particularly in the residential
(43:02):
market.
Ben Sutherland (43:09):
But what I hate about this is one company gets
extremely rich while all of themiddle sector, all of the
builders a lot of the architects.
Sam Brown (43:20):
It does um reduce their workflow, gets
significantly less.
It's everyone else, everyoneelse's shortcoming for not like
bringing themselves up to speed,like and this is like the one
person bolts and no one chasesthem.
You can't be blamed for cominglast in the race, you know yeah,
I do somewhat agree.
Ben Sutherland (43:36):
I can understand what you're saying, but that's
also kind of.
You know, this is kind of shitas well, because, like yeah
you're like, you're like trainedfor a bit as a builder, right,
and you've been a builder forhowever many years, and then
someone tells you, oh, you needto upskill to be a guy who
presses a button in a factory.
(43:57):
I don't know like, do you wantto?
It's kind of not ideal.
Gerard Dombroski (44:03):
Yeah, work is like shifts are happen all the
time.
I guess all the people thatjust used to draw on a drawing
board when they had to startusing computers, there would
have been some late adapters.
Ben Sutherland (44:16):
Yeah, actually speaking of which, another
competitor, slightly different,but is on its way for sure.
I think Tesla and that companyfigure, like the Workerbots,
those ones are going to have abit of an impact on the industry
as well.
What are Workerbots?
Like humanoid robots that aredesigned to have a bit of an
impact on the industry as wellworker bots like humanoid,
humanoid robots, robots that aredesigned to like boston dynamic
(44:39):
scenario, like lift stuff thereyou go, I know, some of those
monotonous tasks.
Sam Brown (44:45):
I named this episode.
I am robot.
Ben Sutherland (44:47):
That's the whole premise of that yeah, yeah, I
think that they'll be quitepopular, even in this country.
I would say we could probablyeven start seeing them within
the year, right Within the yearDo you reckon.
Gerard Dombroski (45:01):
Yep, maybe two , I've heard of set-out robots
that are like yeah guiltyset-out robots that like prints
out your plans onto the slab,which is pretty interesting.
Oh, I've seen those.
They're cool.
Sam Brown (45:12):
I do seem to be horrendously expensive plans
onto the slap, which is prettyinteresting.
Gerard Dombroski (45:14):
Awesome, is that cool do seem to be
horrendously expensive.
So it's like yeah, are you abig enough company that you can
get one of those, or does thatjust become another sub trade?
Ben Sutherland (45:24):
well, you know, by the time, it takes you one
man to just go ping some linesyou know like is absolutely not
feasible.
It's like half a day's work toping some lines, or half a day's
work for a bunch of guys tostand around waiting for a robot
to ping some light, to printsome lines.
It needs to be a really fastrobot.
(45:46):
Yeah, probably is.
I haven't actually seen it.
They do look cool though, doyou have?
go make cups of tea, yeah Ithink like the integration of
like one of those worker botscould be quite you know, you
could easily integrate one ofthose onto your site quite
easily, you know, for all theheavy lifting and like taking
the wheelbarrow out and all ofthose tasks that actually kind
(46:09):
of do some physical damage yeah,I can see, I can see why that
would be good kind of good speedit up Totally.
Sam Brown (46:16):
but then you get into the argument of it taking jobs
from labourers.
Ben Sutherland (46:21):
Maybe that's like the apprentices cutting
their teeth on all of thosetasks.
The scenario is the drafting.
Sam Brown (46:32):
Are we getting lesser builders because they're not
having to push a wheelbarrow?
No, I don't know about that.
Ben Sutherland (46:37):
Yeah.
Sam Brown (46:40):
Hate it or love it.
Who's got?
A hate it or love?
Gerard Dombroski (46:44):
it Alright.
On that note, motorisedwheelbarrows hate it or love it,
Because I'm taking too manyaway from there.
Sam Brown (46:53):
Are you talking about motorised wheelbarrows, as the
one that just have a motor?
Gerard Dombroski (46:56):
in the wheel.
Yeah, they're great.
Sam Brown (46:59):
I love them.
How could you hate those?
Ben Sutherland (47:01):
We brought one of those little motors for the
front of our boat so if we couldpull it out the driveway two
meters without having to push it.
Sam Brown (47:10):
That's lazy.
Ben Sutherland (47:14):
And damn it's so heavy.
Gerard Dombroski (47:15):
It's so good, it is a Ryan, so that's money
well spent.
I'm here for that.
Ben Sutherland (47:20):
I'm pro, absolutely I'm pro motorized.
I've never actually used one,though, funnily enough, but they
do look cool.
Sam Brown (47:27):
So is that, yeah, hate it or love it?
Motorizing men's things.
Gerard Dombroski (47:32):
Motorizing wheels.
Ben Sutherland (47:34):
Iizing wheels.
Gerard Dombroski (47:34):
Motorizing wheels.
You've got a wheel, motorize it.
Ben Sutherland (47:36):
No, I'm going hated actually, because you know
they weren't around when Ineeded them.
I don't want them to come innow when I'm not going to use
one you can get back on thetools.
My booning days are done.
You can get back on the tools.
Sam Brown (47:50):
I don't need one anymore.
Hello DPP listeners.
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Keep a parrot dog Nice.
Ben Sutherland (01:12):
Welcome back to the Design Principles podcast.
Sam's got a beer in his hands,so buckle up, because this
episode is going to be a ripper.
Uh, so what are we talkingabout today?
(01:33):
Automation, mass customization.
Yeah, I was listening to a thisother podcast one of my usuals,
I can't remember which one oneof them and it had the Zuru guy
on there.
So Zuru is a New Zealand-ownedcompany, or the three founders,
the Mulberries up here inAuckland, are from New Zealand,
(01:55):
but I believe they basicallywent to China and started
manufacturing kids' toys andsome of their main hits were
like the uh, what are they?
Sam Brown (02:08):
the blow up the multi water balloon the multi water
balloon.
Ben Sutherland (02:12):
Yeah, that was apparently.
Sam Brown (02:13):
That was a ripper one , together ones as well I think
so yeah, yeah well the ones wecan fill up like a hundred at
once, and then they just likepinch together and had lots of
fun with those with the nephewsover summer.
Ben Sutherland (02:26):
Yeah, exactly.
I guess, though they learnedhow to manufacture, so now
they're getting into housemanufacturing.
Well, they probably have beenfor quite some time, but now
their tests are almost complete,so it's looking like they're
going to start to open it up tothe public and start
manufacturing some of thesehouses mass customized houses.
(02:49):
So I thought it was quiteinteresting to have a chat about
.
You know, maybe the futureimpact Is that for the New
Zealand market it's actuallyglobal.
So currently they're situated inItaly, in Modena, in modena
just super random place to belocated.
I know they have like a factoryover there for the, the kids,
(03:12):
toys and that sort of thing, soperhaps it's like something to
do with that.
So, yeah, currently they're initaly, but basically they are
opening this big facility wherethey are looking to manufacture,
or mass customize manufactureand mass customize houses, and
the way they're doing it is theyhave been working a lot on like
an AI model they call DreamCatcher and basically, like they
(03:37):
are, you know, it's a free forall software, so designers or
anyone can kind of go on thereand play around with a building
and stretch it, come up withtheir own unique designs and
then essentially press print orpress play, and that information
gets sent directly to thefactory where it gets mass
(03:57):
produced and sent to site.
Sam Brown (04:00):
So quite interesting when you say it's sensitive.
I've got, I've got a lot ofquestions.
Ben Sutherland (04:06):
This is all good , it's hard to just like talk
about the whole thing at all atonce, so ask some questions,
please first one I mean this is.
Sam Brown (04:16):
I mean, where do I start?
But like first one, this kindof harkens back to the episode
in the first season of the podabout AI and is this coming for
our jobs?
Do you see that?
Or is it more of again in thevein of that, that original AI
discussion, a bit more of anarchitectural caddy or a
building industry like caddy, oris it kind of superseding the
(04:40):
need for anybody?
Ben Sutherland (04:41):
so I think I think the idea at this point in
time is that it's meant to bemore of like a supportive role
for the designers.
So you know, architects cankind of have their own little
shop built off the back of itand it's meant to help you get
things through.
So it's got every single localcode in the world built into it
(05:03):
already, into the large languagemodel, yeah, exactly.
Or into Dreamcatcher.
So it's meant to like assistyou in what you can and can't do
, and it's been trained like ona lot of architects.
So I guess there is an elementof like plagiarism, as I guess
Gerard would put it.
But I guess from theirperspective it but the I guess
(05:24):
what.
From their perspective, it'sthe builder that it's replacing,
right, they'd want tomanufacture these panels or mass
produce these components andsend it to site.
I don't, I don't believe theyintend on actually having people
on site doing the assembly.
So I guess like that's what thebuilder would become and I
don't believe that they intendon they perhaps will have like
(05:48):
some standard designs, but theystill want people to build the
actual customizable or customdesigns and that sort of thing.
So I think like there's stillan element of like requiring a
designer and a builder, but theywant to kind of like take that
middle chunk and fabricate thecomponents.
(06:09):
Like every single material willbe manufactured in house, so
every component is going to belike produced on site.
So there's no sort of upstream,downstream reliance on other
components, and so that's kindof where they believe they can
make like huge cost savings andefficiencies and production and
(06:30):
so like some of their costs fortheir products.
They say that they're gettingit down to, like you know, 450,
500 a square meter, jesus.
So it's significant differencereally, but that's probably not
including any on-site stuff.
Sam Brown (06:46):
I was gonna say how much is that?
Caveated with a lot of stuff,but still, yes, still, it's
insane, I guess in terms of likethat question on uh, you know,
you design something and pressprint.
What are you print?
Like printing like what isbeing produced in the factory.
Is it essentially like wallfloor, roof, like assembly
(07:07):
cassettes?
Are they like 3d printing shitlike what's what's the outcome?
Or is it like traditionalconstruction, like what's what
are they?
What are these houses made from?
Is it cardboard?
Ben Sutherland (07:19):
there's.
There's not a huge amount ofmaterial information, but from
you know, there is every singlecomponent down to like light
fitting switches, concretestructures, like it's got its
own kind of structuralengineering element.
So a lot of it is just kind ofstandard kind of timber,
concrete and then, like I thinkthere's like a materials that
(07:42):
they have been developingin-house.
I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm just not sure exactly what
the actual materials are, butit seems relatively normal from
my understanding anyway, like ifyou go onto the wazoo website
you can kind of have a littleplay and like everything that
appears to just be like concreteand timber and metal and that
(08:06):
sort of thing very boxyaesthetic yeah, it's very
contemporary modernism yeah,contemporary yeah, but you can
kind of see where they're goingwith the whole.
Sam Brown (08:16):
Keep everything else in house and maximize or
capitalize on the manufacturingside so from the manufacturing
side, like are they do you talkabout them having a factory in
moderna and italy at the momentand then them being a new
zealand company?
Like are they, would they belooking at having like pilot
factories internationally?
Like, would new zealand have afactory?
(08:37):
So if you're designing abuilding here and pressing print
, it's getting made locally oris it getting made offshore and
then shipping?
You know, just from my, myperspective obviously, that
whole embodied carbonconsideration and all that sort
of stuff.
Like is it?
Is it a little bit more closerto home or are you having to
like still import all this stufffrom europe or wherever?
Ben Sutherland (08:59):
well, I suspect that it'll start off in one
place and then it'll be likebased on demand, right.
So like if there was likecountries that fully embraced it
and it made sense to havesomething more local, then I
would imagine they'll start tolocalize.
But I once again like they haveliterally just finished
prototyping all these buildings.
(09:19):
I don't even think that theyhave sorted out exactly how
they're going to be shippingthese around the world and what
their on-site stuff is actuallygoing to look like.
So I suspect there's like afair way to go in the
development.
Still pretty much in beta stage, yeah, but they're moving fast,
(09:40):
you know so, I don't know, Ijust think the concept's quite
interesting.
Fast, you know so, I don't know, I just think the concept's
quite interesting.
And if, if it does kind of takeoff, well, the question is like
, will it take off?
And do we want it to take off?
And like, if it does take off,what does that look like for us?
You know, like it's all, it'sall kind of interesting.
Sam Brown (10:00):
A couple of key questions there, and gerard,
jump in because you've had yourthoughts on this as well.
But, like you know, we'vediscussed this a few times on
the pod.
But they're like you knowarchitecture being accessible to
everybody good architecture atleast, or only quality building
being accessible to everybodythis seems like the golden
ticket.
Answer something like this Ifyou can build for man, if you
(10:22):
can even build for half theprice that we are now like,
let's say, you can build forhalf the price that we are now,
let's say, you can build for2,000 a square meter, that's a
huge win.
They're saying you can buildfor what?
Do you say?
500 to 600 square meters?
That's insanity.
Imagine the affordable housingsolutions you could come up with
.
Ben Sutherland (10:41):
Well, that's a good point.
Maybe this kind of thing willactually just end up targeting
that more affordable housingrealm.
I don't, I can't really see itimpacting the architectural,
which is like the classic toptwo percent that can actually
afford an architect.
You know, maybe like a smallportion of them will actually go
(11:05):
to something like this, but Ican't actually see it.
Sam Brown (11:08):
You say that, ben, but I think it's a misnomer in
that I mean like, no, it's not amisnomer, it's, it is.
It's a commonality thatarchitecture is generally like
reserved for people that canafford it or, you know, the
higher owners.
But I don't think that thatshould preclude architecture, a
good architecture, from beingavailable to everybody.
And this seems like a mechanismthat would actually make good
(11:29):
architecture available toeverybody, because we could, you
could still design, you know,bespoke, interesting things that
aren't as carbon copy or youknow, as like a gj gardener home
or whatever, but at anaffordable price point, because
you're leveraging this like hugemachine for want of a better
term behind you to be able toproduce these houses, you know,
(11:52):
but you've still got designfreedom, because that's what it
appeared.
I had a play around on thewebsite.
That's what it appears like tome is that, like there's still
that sort of promising and again, like we've said, this is very
much in the beta stage, butthey're sort of promising that
you can design whatever the hellyou want and they'll print it,
you know, which is prettyexciting, to be honest.
Ben Sutherland (12:13):
Yeah, it is interesting and just going back
to your carbon emission comment,like it's quite sophisticated
to the point where you knowenvironmentally everything is
tracked, so everything they dodo, especially like you can
imagine manufacturing in afactory, so much easier to
actually understand whatefficiency, yeah, yeah, or where
you know the carbon, you knowwhere the carbon emissions
(12:36):
actually are and what they'rekind of amounting to over the
course of their life cycle, andso that there's that.
And then there's also like thisum, what what they're calling?
Or I can't remember whatthey're calling it, but it's
like a post occupancy element toit as well.
So basically, yeah, it looksafter your house and tracks
(12:57):
everything and monitors it aswell, even after construction,
which is quite interesting.
It really does seem likethey've taken a really
innovative approach and done alot of research and tackled a
lot of these quite big problems.
Gerard Dombroski (13:14):
Yeah, like if we jump back to a bigger
overview.
I think something that needs tobe clarified a little bit is it
seems that they're like kind ofencompassing the whole spectrum
of the process, like right fromlike the ai creating what is it
like?
They're creating their ownsoftware which would replace,
like your traditional cadsoftware.
(13:34):
So I guess you're like alreadybuilt into a system where you're
designing within theirparameters and their tools.
Ben Sutherland (13:40):
Is that is that kind of where we're yeah, that's
right, and they're using likemore, I think, like unreal
engine, more like game software,as opposed to like revit or
archicad or autocad, which is,to be fair, quite outdated and a
little bit clunky, does the job, obviously, but it's not the
(14:01):
most efficient.
They're're not the mostefficient tools, that's for sure
.
Sam Brown (14:05):
They're not the most efficient tools for concept and
imaginative delivery, but theyare efficient at ultimately what
we need to produce, and that'sdetailed working, drawings and
documentation.
How does this process?
Obviously, you mentioned thatthey're aware of or the large
(14:28):
language model at least is awareof certain jurisdictions and
like building code requirementsand standards and all those sort
of things.
But, like, how is thatdocumentation process being
tackled if they're usingprograms like unreal engine?
Ben Sutherland (14:41):
yeah, so they're taking more of like a lego
approach, I guess, where it'slike more like a kit of parts
and an assembly right.
Uh, the q, the qa is done withai, so that's kind of like
checked as you go.
So is all the engineeringautomatically outputs a part, a
(15:03):
working drawing set based onlike requirements from the local
governance or council orwhatever, and it like
categorizes what, who basicallyit understands where the order
comes from and what that council.
It's got every council kind ofscale ranked on like a scale
from like hard to easy I'd loveto love to see that chart those
(15:29):
are like the complexity based on, I guess, like based on its own
experience, because it's justlearning as it goes as well,
right, and so like yeah, I thinkthat's kind of fascinating and
I would imagine like, yeah,surely new zealand especially,
we've got earthquakes as well.
We'll be, uh, we'll be, rightup there.
Well, like you get ridiculous.
Gerard Dombroski (15:48):
You get ridiculous RFIs anyway.
So, like if it's interactingwith, like an AI that's sent it
in a set of drawings to do that,you only can set off, as
they're like battling away well,maybe for the first couple.
Ben Sutherland (16:00):
Surely it'll learn.
Though that's the whole thing,though.
Just going back to what Sam wassaying, like, surely we all at
least agree that thedocumentation is the part of the
process that we should haveautomated yeah, I agree, I think
to it well, I mean, that's thedream right.
Sam Brown (16:15):
Like if we were all.
We're too.
You know us independently.
We're too small to be able tolike put the time into
developing these things.
But I'd imagine, imagine largerarchitecture firms, big ones,
global ones, and even the biggerones in New Zealand.
I think they'd be kiddingthemselves or missing the point
of the future if they're notexploring already or developing
(16:37):
their own large language modelsto cover documentation.
They'll have more than enoughbackground data to be able to
like feed that into a model andand get it to start producing
working drawings shortly maybe.
Ben Sutherland (16:50):
But on one hand I know one really connect,
collects data, and on the otherhand, the price of like cheap
labor is probably still toocheap to actually.
You know, they can just getlike a bunch of students and is
on a cheap hourly rate to pumpall this documentation out and
do all the tedious work.
So they might not even have,you know, they might not feel
(17:12):
like they need to yet, or I'mnot sure if that scale, that
cost versus my camera's justgone all crazy.
There it is.
Yeah, I'm not sure if that kindof threshold has been crossed
yet, but yeah, it is reallyinteresting'm not sure if that
kind of threshold has beencrossed yet, but yeah, it is
really interesting.
And I want, I like to thinkthey are.
But I guess, like there's alsothe part of me that thinks like,
oh, you know, it's really goodlearning for the younger
(17:35):
generation of you know, the, theyoung architecture designers to
you know, cut the teeth on.
Sam Brown (17:42):
I guess, like well, that's a very important point,
ben.
I guess, like there's alwaysthat this is that's a very
important point being.
I'd like to dive into that alittle bit more because you're
you're so right, like thedesigners or students or grads,
people, inexperienced peoplethat are finding their feet or
building up their skill set inthe architectural profession, if
(18:03):
they're coming into the gamewhere they can basically design
whatever they want and get acomputer or get an ai model to
detail it at all, how much doyou reckon or do you guys both
reckon that the architecturewill suffer because you're not
like I think, that reallysuccessful moments in
architecture are obviously theyhave like a high level of
(18:25):
creativity and thoughtfulness tothem, but like their real
successes and how they arerealized, like how those, how
those are detailed successfully,like particular junction this
is me personally but likeparticular junctions and like
the satisfaction of workingthrough a problem, solving it
and how much that influences thearchitectural outcome.
Is that going to be lost on boththe designers and therefore
(18:49):
like architectural outcomesmoving forward, because
everyone's just going to be likehere's a scribble on a piece of
paper, ai print this for me andthey're not actually
understanding like the nuancesof certain aspects of the of the
building yeah, well, that's aninteresting like we've seen that
degradation over the yearsalready.
Gerard Dombroski (19:07):
You look at like older architects, like your
franks and who's he all sits,like we used to use to design
everything like I've mentionedthis all the time just because
it's funny, but frank lordwright, designing somebody's
slippers once, like the level ofdetail that god went into was
like extreme and like you'velost, we've lost that already.
(19:29):
Like when was the last time wesaw somebody do a custom light
switch?
Or I was into we see customdoor handles, maybe on like the
front door, but like man, thisstuff was happening.
Ben Sutherland (19:40):
Like everywhere should we have ever had it?
I mean, like building hasalways been super inefficient,
probably due to that level ofcustomization.
No one like look at a car,right, no one actually knows,
other than the mechanic, how acar is put together.
And if you think of like thebuilding more of like a product,
(20:02):
which obviously these guys are,then it does, it becomes like
irrelevant.
You're like yes, there aregoing to be like a team of
builders that know andunderstand it, but do we?
Gerard Dombroski (20:13):
need.
I'm just asking the questionwhether we're making spec homes.
What's your market like, as arewe.
What would link thisconversation down to answering
one question?
Yes, multiple questions.
Ben Sutherland (20:26):
This literally after you have just said that.
I think, like the literalquestion is is this architecture
, right?
Wow, I don't.
And now I'm questioning like isthis?
But is this just like?
Is this building a product andhousing people?
Is this architecture?
(20:47):
I don't know.
Yeah, I'll probably argue it'smore architecture.
Is a gj gardener group homebuilding kind of thing,
architecture?
Sam Brown (20:56):
I think I think it's all considered architecture.
There's just varying levels ofyou know, bespoke and quality.
To me, architecture iseverything in the built
environment, be that everythingfrom a you know fence on a
council path, you know, throughto a you know bespoke you know,
through to a dam or a museum orsomething that's all I agree.
Gerard Dombroski (21:18):
I agree it's a lens like because it's our
profession, that's our lens likecertainly going to look at
everything as if it'sarchitecture or in an
architectural light.
But are these guys doing thesame?
Maybe they've clearly put a lotof work into like the
aesthetics and like the visuals,are some really nice forms and
stuff going on, but is it givingsomebody like a fully bespoke
(21:40):
little prop from Gerard therethat's a.
Ben Sutherland (21:42):
Didn't expect that out of the pod today.
Gerard Dombroski (21:46):
You're not far between.
Well, I think architectureoffers like to your client, like
the ability for extreme bespoke, like you get to choose your
own involvement.
It's like one of the books youcan read whichever page you want
in, in whatever order, that allhandmade door handles by
(22:07):
somebody, which is very easybolt-on sort of thing in this
instance.
But I think that the analogysurvives, but are they not not?
Sam Brown (22:18):
not necessarily promising, because I don't think
they quite know what they'redelivering yet.
That's my take.
But are they not kind ofalluding to the fact that you
will have that level ofcustomization?
Gerard Dombroski (22:33):
Yeah, but it's all within parameters.
Sam Brown (22:35):
Yeah, exactly.
But to that point, gerard, isthat not how we're designing now
anyway, because, like you'vejust said, when was the last
time we designed everything downto the client's slippers?
Yeah, except right now we'redoing it really inefficiently.
We are we're doing it reallyinefficiently Most of the time.
We're picking from a catalogueof available materials.
(22:57):
And it's not even justavailable materials.
It's available materials thatbloody councils are going to be
happy signing off on becausethey can't see outside of a tick
box exercise, yeah hard.
You know like, are we notalready pigeonholed as a
profession into that,particularly in New Zealand, I
find, anyway pigeonholed alreadyinto that sort of direction or
(23:18):
into that box.
Gerard Dombroski (23:20):
That's kind of what I was trying to allude to
before direction or into theirblocks.
That's kind of what I wastrying to allude to before.
We've already seen thatdegradation in just suppliers'
offerings.
I guess we have our preferredsuppliers and it's just so easy
to outsource your spec to Resignor Dulux or whatever.
This kind of my intention ofarchitecture is to go down that
(23:42):
route of like extremecustomization.
That's why I have a workshopand like to make strange things
Like I'd like to go down to,like knives and forks and you
know, bowls, plates, handleslights.
Ben Sutherland (23:56):
They might be your biggest competition, mate.
Gerard Dombroski (23:58):
Yeah, my factory at one your biggest
competition, mate.
Ben Sutherland (23:59):
Yeah, my factory at one, you'd buy one robot arm
to help out around the place.
Gerard Dombroski (24:07):
Yeah, buy like a bolt Awesome.
Sam Brown (24:11):
They're not promising that level of detail, are they?
They're really just promising ashell.
Ben Sutherland (24:16):
Yeah.
Gerard Dombroski (24:17):
No, no, I think where I want to go is a
different direction too.
Sam Brown (24:22):
Yeah, I see.
So what you're alluding to ismaintaining the integrity of
architecture, despite this beingan offering in the market.
Gerard Dombroski (24:31):
Yeah, I'm fully okay for this to exist.
I'm like 1,000% for affordablehousing and people being able to
house themselves.
I think it's one of the biggerproblems on earth that needs to
be solved, and if this solves it, then shit bed, it's awesome
yes, it's amazing.
Sam Brown (24:50):
It's amazing initiative, if this is gonna
have that result for sure yeah,but I still like making art
design some slippers yeah, man,you want some slippers, I want
some slippers you know I wantsome slippers, some metal
slippers.
Ben, you said somethinginteresting that's just been
twisting around in the back ofmy head for the last minute, but
you know he talked about carsand how, essentially, what
(25:13):
they're looking to do withhousing is what the auto
industry does, and that youcreate a model of car and you
just pump out 10 000 of thoseand it's super monetarily
efficient because you're justdoing the same thing over and
over and over and over again andit's serving a huge need.
Like you know, a lot of peopleneed a toyota corolla.
That's fantastic.
(25:33):
You can produce it cheaply,it's an affordable car, works,
it'll last forever.
Happy days if we're, if they'relooking at this as a housing
solution.
In that same vein, what you saidwas really interesting is that
only a mechanic really knows howto fix a car, and that's fair.
Obviously you've got somepeople that are, you know, a
little bit more clued up thanothers, but myself, a car has
(25:55):
four wheels and a steering wheeland I drive it from a to b and
that's all I know and care aboutit.
Really is that it's?
Is that an issue with this as ahousing?
B, and that's all I know andcare about it really.
Is that an issue with this as ahousing solution, in that it
becomes too specialised tounderstand how these buildings
are made and thereforemaintenance becomes a problem?
Ben Sutherland (26:14):
Well, you know, just like you have mechanics,
you'll just have builders thatknow how to maintain them right.
It really isn't that hard.
And don maintain them right.
It really isn't that hard.
And don't forget like buildingactually isn't that hard.
Cars are probably a lot moretechnical.
Sam Brown (26:29):
There's not actually a huge amount of builders.
Ben Sutherland (26:32):
There's not actually I can say this I'm a
qualified builder, so take that,take that world, and actually
there's not a huge amount ofcomponents, right, it's just
that a lot bigger.
There's a lot more laborinvolved.
But, like, there's not a hugeamount of components, right,
it's just a lot bigger, there'sa lot more labor involved, but
there's not that many components.
If there's any product thatcould be mass customized,
essentially housing is kind ofone of the ones that could make
(26:54):
sense.
Sam Brown (26:55):
I totally agree.
Ben Sutherland (26:56):
But think about how much resistance or how long
it's taken any form ofprefabrication to really make
tracks or get off the ground innew zealand you know, yeah, but
that's just like electric carsuntil one company comes along
and shows everyone how it's doneand then the whole kind of
market booms.
(27:16):
So you know, this could easilyjust be like a spearheading that
whole.
Sam Brown (27:20):
Are these guys the Tesla of the housing industry?
Ben Sutherland (27:22):
Who knows?
That's the whole thing, though,Like we laugh at this now, but
in a year's time or five years'time, is this going to be
everywhere?
Sam Brown (27:32):
Who knows.
Gerard Dombroski (27:34):
To continue the car analogy, have you heard
of the Hilux Chad?
It's the new Toyota, the newToyota Hilux.
I think it's for new toyotahylux or like I think it's for
indonesia, philippines oh yeah,you're telling me about this,
it's such a beautiful littledude man I want it so bad, but
it's like, but it's illegal.
10 grand, I think, over legalin a lot of countries yeah, so,
(27:56):
like the toyota's, madesomething that's manufactured so
efficiently and so cheaply thatit would just cut the market
out of most utility trucks inmost countries.
Sam Brown (28:08):
And is that why it's banned?
Or is it missing a whole bunchof critical safety features for
many countries?
But these other countries areletting it slide to provide an
affordable solution.
Gerard Dombroski (28:18):
Yeah, I don't know enough about it.
Ben Sutherland (28:20):
It's a Toyota made, so a toyota is better than
a good point it'll last.
Sam Brown (28:25):
We know it'll last forever.
Gerard Dombroski (28:26):
No it'll only last half of forever now let's
say hypothetically, this thing,this technology works out
amazing and undercuts the entiremarket.
Would they just crash theindustry and like what the
government be like?
Ben Sutherland (28:43):
no, why.
Why would they do that?
We've got a housing shortage.
Can you imagine the kickback?
Sam Brown (28:51):
yeah, but the thing is that you know everything's
big business right.
If these guys come in, theytake over the whole market, that
whole.
You know that.
I don't want to get into thepolitics of it, but you know the
whole building industry in newzealand is a industry that's
like, rife with monopolizationand scratching each other's
backs, and you know kickbacksand yeah, exactly, it's, it's,
(29:15):
it's heinous, and so I agreewith what gerard said.
I think there could be hugeresistance to something that's
coming in, because the people onhigh are not going to be able
to get their little bonus fromFletchers or from whoever, maybe
this will finally push them outof there then and everyone will
get what they're after.
Yeah, I mean I think it's Couldbe the best thing for the
(29:36):
industry.
It could be.
I mean it could make all of ussit up a little bit and realize
that there's real competitionout there and that we all have
to sharpen up.
Gerard Dombroski (29:51):
Innovative diet.
Sam Brown (29:52):
Like with the automotive industry, Tesla made
the whole world stand on, watchand go oh shit, we've actually
got to take this EV situationseriously.
Ben Sutherland (30:00):
Yeah, and then I guess like they'd be like
construction companies andarchitecture firms, that
specialty kind of like built offthe back of them.
Only do you know their productsand their assemblies and their
onsite stuff and that sort ofthing.
Gerard Dombroski (30:16):
So I guess, yeah just be another accredited
installer.
Sam Brown (30:20):
It's interesting I mean again, I don't want to keep
going back to the automotiveindustry, but it is a very, very
good parallel.
It's a very you know it's a,you know it's a, it's very
accurate parallel and thatthere's the market for this
affordable um entry-level,mass-produced solution, like
(30:41):
your Toyota Hilux truck thatyou're talking about, gerard,
but there's still a market foryour bespoke Bentleys as well.
So I think this doesn't destroy.
Back to the ultimate question.
I think that we had at the topof the pod is like is this going
to ruin architecture or thebuilding industry?
No, it just changes the field alittle bit, but there's still
(31:01):
space for everybody to operateit'll take a while to get a ride
on the board.
Gerard Dombroski (31:04):
There was that recent one that was the most.
Ben Sutherland (31:12):
Wasn't that one of the most efficient buildings
ever built in new zealand?
Gerard Dombroski (31:18):
talking about different ones.
There's these I'm kidding.
Ben Sutherland (31:21):
It's like the most inefficient building.
It's like what if someone,someone calculated oh what's the
cost per square meter was likesomething outrageous yeah, so
that that system is like beingyou know supposed to be like.
Gerard Dombroski (31:36):
Well, I got two grand two, two and a half a
square meter max and it came inat was it seven or?
Ben Sutherland (31:42):
eight.
I thought it was like 16, ohyeah probably so.
Gerard Dombroski (31:47):
I wonder how much of that was in the factory
versus how much of that was thenew zealand installers just
ramping up the costs.
Yeah, so if it is a product andmost of that's made in china,
then you got a big chunk ofshipping.
Ben Sutherland (32:00):
Oh yeah, no, actually it wasn't that bad.
It was like it cost over$630,000, totaling approximately
$7.6 million for thedevelopment.
Apparently, that's like $3,500per square meter.
Well, that's probably prettygood, there, isn't it?
It said each unit cost $600.
(32:21):
How big were they?
How many squares?
Which means that the wholedevelopment amounted to 2.2
million.
So I'm not sure how many unitsthere were, but that's a lot of
money.
Gerard Dombroski (32:31):
So I think, ultimately it was a system that
promised low square metre ratesand would have been promised to
the Earth and then delivered,and that's to deliver.
Sam Brown (32:40):
So I guess what we're saying here is that this system
, or this zero system, is stillyet to prove itself?
Ben Sutherland (32:50):
Yeah, so they've completed.
Apparently they've nearlyperfected their prototypes have
they built anything.
Sam Brown (32:58):
That's the biggest question.
Ben Sutherland (32:59):
Yeah they've built heaps of buildings in
their factories, but theyhaven't built for a customer and
sent it to site, because that'sthat's the difference.
Sam Brown (33:08):
You can do whatever you like in a vacuum and it will
work in a vacuum.
You put it into the real world.
How well does it operate?
Right, like you know, there's areason.
Prototype cars don't always getmade.
Yeah, but there's steps to it.
Ben Sutherland (33:21):
There's steps to it right.
First you got to like nail themanufacturing, and then you've
got to nail the assembly, andthen it's just the logistical
game after that.
Then you got to nail ittogether then you're not fun
together hey, yo sorry, I justwent full dad mode on you guys.
Gerard Dombroski (33:39):
Yeah, appreciate that.
I'm here for it.
Sam Brown (33:43):
Is there anyone?
We've only talked about onecompany.
Is there anybody challengingthem?
Is anybody else doing the samething?
Apparently, yes.
Right At home, as in NewZealand, or internationally, or
like what's the other, who'stheir?
Ben Sutherland (33:59):
challengers out there.
Well, not in this country,right?
Not really, because they'vesunk hundreds of millions of
dollars into it, and I doubtlike there's anyone in new
zealand, any builders in newzealand that have just like a
low-key, hundreds of millions ofdollars floating around.
But I suspect, like in terms ofthe automation oh sorry, the
(34:21):
dreamcatcher side of things,even like autodesk and desult
systems and that sort of thingare probably doing, you know,
they'll definitely be working onsimilar products like how could
they not right?
Sam Brown (34:35):
well, yeah, I'm surprised that you know wherever
it uses.
I'm surprised that arcadesoftware doesn't have a level of
ai to it already.
Ben Sutherland (34:43):
Yeah, I know have you, have you used, have
you been using um 2025?
Sam Brown (34:49):
no, I usually wait a year until all the bug fixes
have been ironed out before Idownload the latest version it's
so.
Ben Sutherland (34:56):
It's like the first version I've used.
That is like quite a bit it'sthe same, but it's like you know
how, sometimes, like apple goesthrough that process of like
simplifying what all the appslook like and everything, yeah,
and the changing the colors.
They've done that on revit 2025and I'm like what is everything
?
Like everything is like adifferent color and it's like
(35:18):
super simplified.
But there are some goodimprovements, I gotta say, from
what I've seen so far.
Just to get a little bit nerdyon it there, but that's the
trick though that would beawesome.
Sam Brown (35:31):
I'm right here for a new market contender in the uh
can software in the software isso expensive, man they're so
expensive and they're so, toyour point earlier on, they're
so archaic, I guess to a degree.
Gerard Dombroski (35:48):
Like they, really they fundamentally.
Sam Brown (35:50):
I mean haven't changed and I've been using CAD
software for 20 years.
I mean there'll be people outthere, there'll be addicts out
there that have been using CADsoftware for 40 years plus, like
they.
Fundamentally, haven't changedever, yeah, well, another thing
that yeah sorry, no.
No, I was going to say a bit ofparametric, like you know,
(36:12):
parametrics brought in by thelikes of rhino and that sort of
thing, but ultimately they'restill the same thing another
thing that really roughs me upis I'm really I'm quite sure
like new zealand, doesn'tactually new zealand, australia,
like everyone gets differentversions of the software.
Ben Sutherland (36:28):
So there's like things that new zealand version
of revit can't do that others,you know overseas, can do and
that sort of thing and that'salways really annoying yeah
because I I'm like always.
I always use like chat, gvt andthat sort of thing when I'm
stuck and trying to figuresomething out, and then it's
always like so many times it'slike you use the New Zealand
(36:49):
version and you can't do this.
Sam Brown (36:51):
I'm like damn so annoying.
It's like Netflix, right?
You need a VPN for your Revit.
Ben Sutherland (37:00):
Why does us, being a little island nation,
mean that we get shafted on thefunctionalities of Revit as well
?
Sam Brown (37:07):
We're not going to let you guys develop cool shit.
No exactly.
Ben Sutherland (37:13):
They are controlling our growth 100% they
are.
They are They'll have stuffthat has light years ahead, that
they like they'll have likestuff that's a light years ahead
, that they're just kind of dripfeeding the industry that's why
it needs, like somebody needsto come in with like a paradigm
shift yeah, well, that's kind ofwhy like this could be quite
(37:33):
cool, just to like give autodeska bit of a you know, more
competition, that sort of thing.
That'd be quite nice, yeah,like even beyond.
Sam Brown (37:41):
yeah, because I kind of see the success in this thing
not necessarily I think they'vegot so much to prove in the
delivery of an actual builtfinished project, like I think
that's that, despite what yousay being in terms of what
development they're put in, Ithink that there's so much to go
in that space, but where, wherethe success is clearly going to
(38:05):
lie, I think and already youcan see it, I've not played
around with it enough, but youcan even see it on the surface
is in that CAD challengingspectrum or in that realm.
Gerard Dombroski (38:16):
Yeah, is there , somewhere you can play on
their software.
Ben Sutherland (38:22):
I haven't had a good play.
I'm not sure if you candownload Dreamcatcher yet, but
you can have a little play onthe website.
I haven't tried to download it.
Gerard Dombroski (38:32):
I don't know if it's available yet, but it
will be soon, yeah imagine beingable to teach your AI detailer
software your type of details orlike, along with the basic code
.
If it could like, blend in abit more.
Sam Brown (38:48):
I had this discussion with someone at the start of
the year, midway through lastyear coming about a really good
discussion about them about AI,and they were astounded that we
weren't developing largerlanguage models and feeding them
our details and feeding themour annotation systems and all
that sort of stuff and gettingthem to build for us.
Ben Sutherland (39:10):
Yeah, who was that?
What industry were they from?
Banking oh.
Sam Brown (39:16):
And they were saying that all of their focus is on
building large language modelsto do the menial shit that no
one else, that no one reallywants to do.
And that's exactly what we need, ai to do for us as well.
I mean, to that point, though, Istill think that we want to
really dive in and get intrinsicand get bespoke.
You still want to be able tohave that flexibility, but all
(39:38):
those generic things that youneed to deal with, and most of
the time, those that genericshatters, the compliance side of
things well, why is ai notdoing that for?
Ben Sutherland (39:47):
that for us yeah , and so costing as well.
So these guys say you know,because you're flexing your
model and adding variouselements like windows, doors,
materials, that all of thepricing is live as well.
So I mean, like that could bequite interesting.
That's definitely somethingI've played around with a lot in
the past, and not successfully,unfortunately, but always been
(40:11):
an advocate for live pricingyeah, I think that would be.
Sam Brown (40:14):
That's a huge thing.
I find that it's a huge thingfor our industry.
It's a frustration that I haveconstantly is how in the dark we
as architects actually arearound pricing, and even to the
point where suppliers won't giveus or like merchants and stuff
won't actually give us pricinginformation.
(40:34):
Do you guys find that and I'mlike, how are we supposed to
have a handle on how much thingsare going to cost, or how are
we supposed to get a handle ondesign decisions when are going
to cost?
Or how are we supposed to get ahandle on like design decisions
when you actually won't give usa straight?
Ben Sutherland (40:46):
answer I never had that, never had that hustle,
hustle hard, but it just shouldbe easy, right, like we did.
Sam Brown (40:56):
You know, like obviously, like yeah, you can
hustle hard, you can really divedown, you can like press
something for information, butit's usually so reluctant for
like why is there not like aportal for us to just go and be
able to like see the reality ofpricing somewhere?
Gerard Dombroski (41:08):
yeah, you know , different builders have
different prices well, thenthere's.
Sam Brown (41:12):
Another thing.
Ben Sutherland (41:12):
You're right, yeah, but different distributors
have different prices, so a lotof it kind of depends on A the
level of the builder.
So how big the builder is, ifthey're like a one-man band,
obviously they're not putting asmuch product through.
Their turnover is a lot lower,so they're not putting as much
product through thoseplacemakers or your bunnings or
whatever, and so you get smalleris a lot lower, so they're not
(41:33):
putting as much product throughthose you know placemakers or
your bunnings or whatever, andso like you get smaller
discounts, whereas if you're alarge manufacturing group home
builder, basically you get a lotbetter discounts and that and
rates and then and then, everysingle bunnings and placemakers
and yada, yada yada offerdifferent rates as well.
(41:53):
So it's pretty much impossibleto have the same.
Sam Brown (41:56):
Well, that's exactly the thing and that's why that's
why it's such a frustration whenpeople try and compare to build
projects.
Even in this, you know let'ssay, take new zealand, for
example, I built.
You know, if you buildsomething in the north island
versus you build something inthe south island, exactly the
same they will cost differentamounts of money.
Ben Sutherland (42:17):
So it's so hard for like cost parity in the
industry you know, yeah, butthat's just the market, right,
you know the market governs it,you know.
So it's hard to say because,like in South Island, like a lot
of the products that you usemight not be as readily
available as North Island.
Sam Brown (42:39):
So there's just so many contributing factors,
totally, but that's what I,that's what I love about this,
like zuru solution is thatyou're not.
You're not being dictated byyour locale, you're not being
dictated by whether you're usinga group home builder or a one
band you know one man, band oranything like.
The price that you're seeing iswhat it's costing and that
gives so much confidence andsurety to the process, which I
think is so necessary,particularly in the residential
(43:02):
market.
Ben Sutherland (43:09):
But what I hate about this is one company gets
extremely rich while all of themiddle sector, all of the
builders a lot of the architects.
Sam Brown (43:20):
It does um reduce their workflow, gets
significantly less.
It's everyone else, everyoneelse's shortcoming for not like
bringing themselves up to speed,like and this is like the one
person bolts and no one chasesthem.
You can't be blamed for cominglast in the race, you know yeah,
I do somewhat agree.
Ben Sutherland (43:36):
I can understand what you're saying, but that's
also kind of.
You know, this is kind of shitas well, because, like yeah
you're like, you're like trainedfor a bit as a builder, right,
and you've been a builder forhowever many years, and then
someone tells you, oh, you needto upskill to be a guy who
presses a button in a factory.
(43:57):
I don't know like, do you wantto?
It's kind of not ideal.
Gerard Dombroski (44:03):
Yeah, work is like shifts are happen all the
time.
I guess all the people thatjust used to draw on a drawing
board when they had to startusing computers, there would
have been some late adapters.
Ben Sutherland (44:16):
Yeah, actually speaking of which, another
competitor, slightly different,but is on its way for sure.
I think Tesla and that companyfigure, like the Workerbots,
those ones are going to have abit of an impact on the industry
as well.
What are Workerbots?
Like humanoid robots that aredesigned to have a bit of an
impact on the industry as wellworker bots like humanoid,
humanoid robots, robots that aredesigned to like boston dynamic
(44:39):
scenario, like lift stuff thereyou go, I know, some of those
monotonous tasks.
Sam Brown (44:45):
I named this episode.
I am robot.
Ben Sutherland (44:47):
That's the whole premise of that yeah, yeah, I
think that they'll be quitepopular, even in this country.
I would say we could probablyeven start seeing them within
the year, right Within the yearDo you reckon.
Gerard Dombroski (45:01):
Yep, maybe two , I've heard of set-out robots
that are like yeah guiltyset-out robots that like prints
out your plans onto the slab,which is pretty interesting.
Oh, I've seen those.
They're cool.
Sam Brown (45:12):
I do seem to be horrendously expensive plans
onto the slap, which is prettyinteresting.
Gerard Dombroski (45:14):
Awesome, is that cool do seem to be
horrendously expensive.
So it's like yeah, are you abig enough company that you can
get one of those, or does thatjust become another sub trade?
Ben Sutherland (45:24):
well, you know, by the time, it takes you one
man to just go ping some linesyou know like is absolutely not
feasible.
It's like half a day's work toping some lines, or half a day's
work for a bunch of guys tostand around waiting for a robot
to ping some light, to printsome lines.
It needs to be a really fastrobot.
(45:46):
Yeah, probably is.
I haven't actually seen it.
They do look cool though, doyou have?
go make cups of tea, yeah Ithink like the integration of
like one of those worker botscould be quite you know, you
could easily integrate one ofthose onto your site quite
easily, you know, for all theheavy lifting and like taking
the wheelbarrow out and all ofthose tasks that actually kind
(46:09):
of do some physical damage yeah,I can see, I can see why that
would be good kind of good speedit up Totally.
Sam Brown (46:16):
but then you get into the argument of it taking jobs
from labourers.
Ben Sutherland (46:21):
Maybe that's like the apprentices cutting
their teeth on all of thosetasks.
The scenario is the drafting.
Sam Brown (46:32):
Are we getting lesser builders because they're not
having to push a wheelbarrow?
No, I don't know about that.
Ben Sutherland (46:37):
Yeah.
Sam Brown (46:40):
Hate it or love it.
Who's got?
A hate it or love?
Gerard Dombroski (46:44):
it Alright.
On that note, motorisedwheelbarrows hate it or love it,
Because I'm taking too manyaway from there.
Sam Brown (46:53):
Are you talking about motorised wheelbarrows, as the
one that just have a motor?
Gerard Dombroski (46:56):
in the wheel.
Yeah, they're great.
Sam Brown (46:59):
I love them.
How could you hate those?
Ben Sutherland (47:01):
We brought one of those little motors for the
front of our boat so if we couldpull it out the driveway two
meters without having to push it.
Sam Brown (47:10):
That's lazy.
Ben Sutherland (47:14):
And damn it's so heavy.
Gerard Dombroski (47:15):
It's so good, it is a Ryan, so that's money
well spent.
I'm here for that.
Ben Sutherland (47:20):
I'm pro, absolutely I'm pro motorized.
I've never actually used one,though, funnily enough, but they
do look cool.
Sam Brown (47:27):
So is that, yeah, hate it or love it?
Motorizing men's things.
Gerard Dombroski (47:32):
Motorizing wheels.
Ben Sutherland (47:34):
Iizing wheels.
Gerard Dombroski (47:34):
Motorizing wheels.
You've got a wheel, motorize it.
Ben Sutherland (47:36):
No, I'm going hated actually, because you know
they weren't around when Ineeded them.
I don't want them to come innow when I'm not going to use
one you can get back on thetools.
My booning days are done.
You can get back on the tools.
Sam Brown (47:50):
I don't need one anymore.
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