Building Across Mediums

Thesis

The central premise of BurbridgeBuilds is simple: building is one practice, practiced in many materials. A person who builds well in wood can, with effort, build well in code. A person who builds well in code can, with effort, build well in a business. A person who builds well in photography can, with effort, do all of the above. ^[1] The effort is real. So is the transferable skill.

What Transfers

The following show up in every building discipline the editor has examined. They are the "verb" part of building:

• Planning before acting. Sketches. Drawings. Specs. Data models.
• Respecting the material. Properties matter. See: The Material.
• The foundation rule. You cannot fix it later. See: Foundation.
• The completion standard. "Done" means done. See: On Completion.
• Edge cases are the center case. This is nearly universal.
• Small teams outperform large ones for hard work. See: The Fellowship.
• Beauty and correctness are the same thing, eventually.
• You clean up as you go.

What Doesn't

Not everything transfers. The nouns of each medium have to be learned:

• Physical safety is a construction-specific discipline in a way software is not.
• Version control is a software-specific blessing that has no perfect equivalent in framing.
• Weather is load-bearing in construction and photography; it is barely present in software.
• Public liability is different in each medium.
• The pace of iteration differs: software is fast, framing is medium, solar inspections are slow.

Recognizing what transfers and what doesn't is the work of the multi-medium builder. The mistake is assuming everything transfers. The other mistake is assuming nothing does.

Burbridge's Case

Burbridge is, in a real sense, the worked example of this thesis. Construction, carpentry, software, businesses, solar, the occasional 3D print, a camera, a bike, skis. All in rotation. Not one of these domains is a side-quest from the others. They are all building.

"Building is not what I do. It's how I do things." — Burbridge, attributed

References