Instant Design: 3D printed homes for $5000. Delivered

It's been well understood that the power of design is in the hands of those who can deliver. What about complete homes for $5000 via 3D printing? They are here. Here's how:

No longer is it days, weeks or months of preparation, teams of builders and scores of resources. Enter Win Sun Engineering possibly the first full functional construction firm to fully design and deploy a working system for the construction of 3D Printed and Manufactured homes on site. With no formal codes for buildings of these types of designs, the current technology is limited to basic structures, and construction time seems to be only days for a fully formed structure. Discussed in a lecture given in 2013, and a subsequent TED talk, Behrokh Khoshnevis gives the beginning of how and why. However, while this was taking place, Win Sun Engineering had already launched their machine. Now it's up to the designers to push the envelop of what can and can't be done.

Why are VC's snapping up designers? ROI

1st it was the CTO's elevated to boards. Now it's Designers. When Google ventures embraces design thinking, and VC's follow there's a reason. Here's why: 

What makes a good product a great product? A VC's ROI? Eyes of beholders at the Triennale Milan? Both. The reason: popularity, commercialization, the necessity of new advances to be embraced as relevant and used. But that is not just a function of consumer or market acceptance. Where was Ethernet formed? Where did Douglas Carl Engelbar develop the basis for the entire connected world that we live and work in today? Labs. University Research Facilities. Where did Alberto Giacometti perfect his works that are a quentisential factor in Italian industrial design? Labs. Workshops. 

And today VC's are picking up on the need to be involved in these spaces. In a most recent article yet another VC picks up on the reality that design and design thinking drives ROI. Why VC Firms Are Snapping Up Designers gives the roadmap for how firms are adapting and embracing design thinking, and not only from a UX, UI, but Product perspective to increase ROI and usability.

What's real innovation? large dark failures & small powerful lights

The constant innovation question: how many failures before market changing breakthroughs? Look to Edison & the lightbulb. 1000's. And Google X is a perfect example of this. Here's how they do it. 

Japan's YOY labs does the same for example with their "lampshade" light above, shown at this years Salone Del Mobile, the worlds largest design show and just like Google X does the same in their unmarked brown brick building - trials and trials and trials until one out of maybe 10000 trails works. How do they do both firms, a tiny japaneese design house and titan google do this so easily? They are not afraid to say no.

The recent article in Fast company The Truth About Google X: An Exclusive Look Behind The Secretive Lab's Closed Doors goes where other articles do not: to the personalities of those who work there: multidiciplinary and out there. Just like the early days at the famous Xerox PARC labs. Why? Because failure is not only tolerated, it is encouraged to get to the end point: ideas that stick and can change entire markets - the correct definition of innovation.