You know. The walking dead.
People have been talking about this “zombie economy” and referring to “zombie banks” and looking at “zombie industries” like Detroit or education or the health care system and wondering how to bring them back to life. What exactly does this mean?
These zombies all have one thing in common. They are operating as if what worked when “things were good” is going to keep working if we can just provide the right stimulus or discover the right technology or act more efficiently. Let’s make Frankenstein walk!
But really, when “things were good” is more appropriately expressed as “when things were different”. Now that “things are bad” we need to acknowledge a simple, and liberating, truth: Things are different.
What this means is that we can’t count on the modes of operation that these zombies once lived by; notably cheap energy, easy credit, and a willingness to consume resources faster than they can be replaced. Those debts are coming due.
This requires us to ask new questions. If things are different, how do those differences invite us to act? Probably not by hoping we can make a better version of what isn’t working. Probably by endeavoring to acknowledge and respond to what has changed.
The building industry, like so many others, walks on in “zombie” mode trying to build “green” versions of the outsized and remote homes too many still equate with a past we might return to. It’s not going to happen. And more importantly, it shouldn’t.
The prospects for a living building industry depend on this necessary realization: our homes must endeavor to provide comfort and utility while using dramatically less energy and resources, less space with better utility, and at the same time provide significantly better comfort, health, durability, and stability. In short, we need “future friendly” homes.
To operate a building business that intends to walk among the living and not continue to march side by side with the living dead requires a commitment to discovery. To own up to the reality that “things are different” we depend on a healthy dose of curiosity and a equal measures of commitment and courage. We get up and come to work every day emboldened by this challenge.
We know we’re equipped to make this work.