A few weeks ago, Katerra announced that it was going bankrupt. Katerra had been discussed with Michael Green in an episode of Single Serves earlier this year.
While it's sad that this happened, I'm not familiar enough with the subject to speculate on the reasons of its demise. If you'd like to know more, this piece will give you some background information straight from the fingers of a former employee.
What was interesting about Katerra was the enormous ambition to vertically integrate all aspects of architecture and construction under a single roof in order to have more control over the quality of the product, as well as its price.
I'd love to see other companies learn from this and pick up the mantle as the construction industry has so many inefficiencies and is ripe for reinvention. I still don't get why every single building is a one-off, especially in the residential sector.
We think nothing of seeing two cars of the same model next to each other, and generally, there are enough differences in their appearance (colours, finishes, aftermarket customization, etc.) to not make the streets look completely uniform. Why can't it be the same with residential architecture?