(d) the specialty metal contractor invented a waterproof
shingling system that dramatically reduced the
thickness and cost of the roofing;
(e) the construction manager expanded its scope of
work and begin providing location measurements to contractors,
increasing its own risk, but reducing construction
time and construction errors; and
(f) the drywall contractor became the first American
company to license a soundproof plaster system from
Swiss developers, which created a new line of specialty
business for them.
For all these innovations, there exist alternative, traditional
methods that the contractors, fire marshal, or
construction manager could have employed. However,
instead they invented a better way (less costly, more
elegant, or more reliable) to accomplish their part of
the overall project. Also, these innovations were carried
forward into subsequent, non-Gehry projects by
the innovating firms, thereby strengthening each individual
organization, as well as the AEC industries. Each
innovation can be thought of as creating a wake in
their respective community of practice, but in the Lewis
Building project, they also served to influence each other
as interacting wakes of innovation. Consider the following
examples:
1. the new roof structure enabled the exterior and interior
surfaces of the building to directly coincide with
each other—an unusual condition in a complexly shaped
building;
2. the roofing shingle system enabled that parallelism
between the interior and exterior surfaces to be carried
out with extremely tight precision;
3. the precision requirement challenged the interior
surface contractors to invent new, closer tolerance,
curved surface construction techniques;
4. the curved interiors created a new challenge for the
fire smoke evacuation studies, stimulating the invention
of new models of air flows for extremely complex interior
surfaces;