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Shock & Awe: A Review of 84 Lumber's Recent Showcase-Build Videos in Historical Context

In the past seven months, 84 Lumber—the nation’s largest privately owned supplier of building materials, which reported revenues last year exceeding six billion dollars—released two showcase-build videos documenting the construction of a single-family house within ten hours. The spectacle of completing a home in hours rather than weeks or months reinforces a narrative of inevitability: digital construction has reached a stage where inefficiencies and waste can no longer be tolerated. These showcase builds fit has become a growing trend in residential construction media that emphasizes expediency, precision, and automation as the new industry standard.

This “shock and awe” campaign mirrors the narrative seen in Builders FirstSource’s READY-FRAME® case studies, which promote pre-cut framing systems as transformative solutions that reduce labor costs, accelerate construction, and minimize waste. READY-FRAME® promotional materials juxtapose digital and conventional framing, reinforcing the myth of inevitable technological progress by portraying digital construction as inherently superior.1 The same visual strategies—time-lapse sequences, compressed build times, and streamlined workflows—appear in both 84 Lumber’s videos and Builders FirstSource’s content, advancing a vision of speed and efficiency while overlooking the persistent technological and adoption barriers that hinder the industry’s transition to fully digital construction.

In many ways, 84 Lumber’s showcase videos provide a fresh perspective, particularly for those unfamiliar with digital technology’s history in residential construction. This campaign coincides with renewed scrutiny of the industry’s half-century decline in productivity. As one columnist for The New York Times recently observed:

Here’s something odd: We’re getting worse at construction. Think of the technology we have today that we didn’t in the 1970s. The new generations of power tools and computer modeling and teleconferencing and advanced machinery and prefab materials and global shipping. You’d think we could build much more, much faster, for less money, than in the past. But we can’t. Or, at least, we don’t.2

Yet those familiar with this history hesitate to accept such conclusions outright. The following analysis explores the reasons for that hesitation in detail.

Section I: The Allusion of Digital Inevitability

The Rhetoric of Digital Supremacy

Promotional materials from companies like 84 Lumber and Builders FirstSource suggest that digital construction has already surpassed traditional building techniques, with widespread adoption as the final step. However, research in digital construction theory contradicts this assumption. Digital tools remain expensive, inconsistently implemented, and fragmented across firms.3 While corporate marketing campaigns present a vision of seamless digital integration, firms continue to face structural, financial, and logistical challenges that hinder full adoption.4

84 Lumber’s Showcase-Build Videos: A Case Study in Promotional Narratives

84 Lumber’s two showcase-build videos exemplify the tension between promotional rhetoric and industry realities.

https://videopress.com/v/ibmLOBQX?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true "2024 Innovative Housing Showcase in Washington, D.C.,” 84 Lumber (YouTube), June 10, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u6yGHBW3-U.

The first video, released in June 2024, captures 84 Lumber’s participation in the Innovative Housing Showcase (IHS), a public event held in Washington, D.C., before the U.S. Senate.5 The company collaborated with the Structural Building Components Association (SBCA) to demonstrate the potential of offsite manufacturing in residential construction. Over eight hours, 84 Lumber and its partners constructed a two-story single-family house using prefabricated roof trusses, floor trusses, and wall panels manufactured at their Winchester, Virginia, facility.6 After the event, the structure was disassembled and transported to Waynesboro, Virginia, where it was repurposed into two separate Habitat for Humanity homes.

https://videopress.com/v/4frf6poX?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true “84 Lumber | Meritage Homes x MiTek (Columbia, South Carolina),” 84 Lumber (YouTube), January 7, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7cY8K5J-yQ.

The second video, released in January 2025, documents another offsite construction project, this time in Columbia, South Carolina. This build was a collaborative effort between 84 Lumber, Meritage Homes, and MiTek, aimed at standardizing and optimizing the homebuilding process. The project incorporated advanced prefabrication techniques, including 20-foot wall panels, 35-foot floor cassettes, and 13.5-foot-wide roof cassettes, which minimized crane usage and increased efficiency. The team also used 3D modeling and virtual reality (VR) simulations to identify potential design conflicts before construction.7 As 84 Lumber’s National Design Manager Scott Remick explained:

You wear the VR goggles, you can poke your head into the model. You can look around the structural elements. You can look for collisions, clashes, [and] resolve them virtually before we’re out on job sites.8

This integration of VR technology streamlined the design phase, reducing errors and delays. By addressing conflicts in a virtual space, the team optimized material usage and improved coordination among stakeholders. These innovations exemplify a broader shift toward precision-driven, technology-enhanced construction.

Both videos reinforce a common vision for the future of residential construction—one driven by efficiency, standardization, and technological integration. The first video underscores the broader societal need for affordable entry-level housing, positioning offsite techniques as a solution to labor shortages and rising home prices. The second video expands on this theme by showcasing how advanced digital tools, including 3D modeling and virtual reality, enhance precision and reduce onsite errors.9 In both cases, 84 Lumber promotes offsite manufacturing as a method to reduce labor demands, lower costs, and accelerate construction timelines.

The Theoretical Potential versus Practical Limitations Challenge

While 84 Lumber’s promotional materials suggest that digital adoption is a straightforward process, scholars such as Charles Eastman and Bilal Succar have long emphasized that successful digital construction requires more than technological advancement. Industry-wide adaptation and knowledge transfer remain critical barriers.10 Succar, in particular, argues that without structured implementation frameworks, digital construction tools risk becoming underutilized despite their potential benefits.11

Similarly, Angelo Leogrande and Mattia Pedota’s research on "dark data" in construction highlights how firms often collect vast amounts of digital information without developing systematic strategies for applying it.12 This issue remains prevalent in residential construction, where fragmented data management systems prevent seamless collaboration across firms.

The Danger of Unrealistic Expectations

By reinforcing a narrative of digital inevitability, 84 Lumber’s showcase-build videos create unrealistic expectations among builders, construction crews, and developers. Many in the industry hesitate not because they reject innovation, but because they recognize the technological limitations, financial burdens, and logistical challenges associated with implementation.13

Without addressing these foundational issues, the transition to digital construction will remain incomplete, and the promise of efficiency, standardization, and cost reduction will continue to outpace reality.

Section II: Building the Narrative

Immanent Critique and the Digital Construction Paradox

This review employs immanent critique, a method that identifies contradictions within a system’s own logic rather than opposing its broader aims. Rooted in Hegel’s dialectical framework, immanent critique was later adapted by Marx, Adorno, and Horkheimer to analyze capitalism and mass media.14 By applying this method to 84 Lumber’s showcase-build videos, this review highlights how these materials construct a narrative of digital inevitability that masks the economic and technological challenges impeding full-scale adoption.

Immanent critique functions as an internal stress test rather than a rejection of digital construction. It examines whether the promotional claims of industry leaders align with on-the-ground realities.

The primary question emerges: Do 84 Lumber’s showcase-build videos accurately depict the feasibility of digital adoption, or do they rely on aesthetic spectacle to suggest a seamless transition? This distinction is particularly relevant in an era where symbolic representation often outpaces material progress—a phenomenon theorized by Jean Baudrillard’s concept of simulacra, which describes how media constructs hyperreal environments that obscure actual conditions.15

The Agenda-Setting Power of Media in Digital Construction

Media campaigns in construction do more than document technological progress; they actively shape the industry’s discourse and expectations. As Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw argue, media influences not only what issues audiences think about but also how they perceive those issues.16 Promotional videos like those produced by 84 Lumber employ time-lapse sequences, condensed build times, and frictionless digital workflows to cultivate the perception that digital construction is already the standard, rather than an emerging technology with significant adoption barriers.

This agenda-setting power extends beyond industry professionals. Media-driven narratives create external pressure from policymakers, developers, and investors, accelerating a demand for digital adoption that does not always align with practical industry conditions. Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic capital further illustrates how visibility and media presence shape industry priorities just as much as material resources.17 Companies that dominate digital construction discourse accrue symbolic legitimacy, reinforcing the belief that digital adoption is not only possible but imminent, regardless of whether industry-wide feasibility exists.

The Role of Digital Theory: From Nederveen & Tolman to Borkowski

The theoretical foundations of digital construction stretch back decades. G.A. van Nederveen and F.P. Tolman, writing in Automation in Construction in 1992, theorized that digital construction tools could eliminate on-site errors by integrating all plans into a shared virtual framework.18 Their model proposed a single digital environment, enabling architects, engineers, and contractors to collaborate seamlessly, reducing errors and inefficiencies.

Despite the strength of this vision, technological limitations prevented widespread implementation for decades. Only in recent years have software and hardware capabilities approached early digital theorists’ expectations. However, the residential construction industry remains unprepared for full-scale digital integration. Many builders lack the infrastructure needed to capitalize on data-driven construction, forcing them to rely on fragmented, inconsistent technological solutions rather than the seamless systems promoted in digital marketing campaigns.19

Compounding these challenges, the absence of a standardized definition of Building Information Modeling (BIM) complicates digital adoption. Some firms treat BIM as a 3D modeling software suite, while others define it as a methodological framework for managing construction data.20 This lack of clarity prevents firms, policymakers, and industry professionals from establishing consistent implementation standards, reinforcing skepticism about digital construction’s viability. As Andrzej Szymon Borkowski argues, BIM theory has consistently outpaced the IT solutions designed to implement it, a misalignment that extends beyond BIM to all digital construction technologies.21

Beyond the Spectacle: A Realistic Path Forward

84 Lumber’s showcase videos, like those produced by other industry leaders, present digital construction as a fully developed and seamlessly integrated process. Their emphasis on rapid assembly and frictionless digital workflows implies that the industry has already reached a digital future. However, as this review has demonstrated, the gap between theory and reality remains substantial.

If digital construction is to move beyond marketing spectacle, it must ground itself in realistic implementation strategies. Industry-wide digital adoption will not succeed through promotional narratives alone; it will require standardized frameworks, workforce training, and long-term investment. Until then, the promise of digital construction will remain just that—a promise rather than an industry-wide transformation.

Section III: The Problems of Unrealistic Expectations

The Spectacle of Digital Construction: A Misleading Benchmark

The “shock and awe” approach in 84 Lumber’s showcase videos constructs an illusion of radical efficiency. By suggesting that a house can be assembled within hours rather than weeks or months, these materials imply a level of technological sophistication that current software, hardware, and labor conditions do not support. Time-lapse sequences, frictionless digital workflows, and seamless prefabrication project an image of effortless technological adoption, when in reality, the residential construction industry remains constrained by logistical, financial, and technical barriers.22

One of the most striking examples of this gap between promise and reality comes from the Remick's statement about how digital technologies now enable construction teams to digitally examine and walk through "structural elements." As a result, crews can now detect "collisions, clashes, [and] resolve them virtually before we’re out on job sites.”23

At first glance, Remick’s statement aligns perfectly with the digital construction ideal proposed by G.A. van Nederveen and F.P. Tolman more than thirty years ago. Writing in Automation in Construction in 1992, Nederveen and Tolman theorized a fully integrated digital framework that would allow architects, engineers, and contractors to collaborate in a shared virtual environment, preventing design conflicts before construction even began.24

Yet, the critical detail is time. When Nederveen and Tolman published their vision, digital clash detection remained purely theoretical—the industry lacked both the computing power and standardized frameworks necessary for real-world implementation. In their article, they argue that:

Buildings and building parts are viewed differently by each partner: e.g., a wall is regarded by the designer as a 'space boundary,' by the structural engineer as a 'load-bearing element' or as a 'non-load-bearing element,' and by the energy engineer as a 'climate zone separator.25

This concept of multiple conflicting views made digital coordination extremely difficult in practice. Nederveen and Tolman envisioned a system where “aspect models” could resolve these conflicting perspectives by integrating them into a unified digital framework.26 Their hope was that digital tools would allow all project stakeholders to detect and resolve clashes in advance.

Digital Construction Theory Outpaces Digital Construction’s Capabilities

Skepticism extends beyond just clash detection and includes how 84 Lumber portrays digital workflows. The broader issue is that digital construction theory consistently outpaces the IT solutions available to implement it. Andrzej Szymon Borkowski, in his 2023 study on the evolution of BIM, identifies a persistent problem. “The development of BIM software,” Borkowski explains, “has not kept pace with the development of BIM theory and practice presented in the academic field. New methods and concepts are emerging that are too slowly being adapted to IT solutions.”27

Borkowski’s analysis focuses on BIM specifically, but the same fundamental issue applies across all digital construction technologies—including robotic prefabrication, automated site monitoring, and AI-driven project coordination. These innovations often emerge as theoretical models long before practical solutions exist, leading to overinflated expectations about their feasibility.

This disconnect is particularly visible in the industry’s rank-and-file workforce—the construction laborers, site managers, and subcontractors expected to adopt these tools. The marketing narratives of digital construction leaders, including 84 Lumber, emphasize seamless adoption, but the reality is far more complicated. Builders operate in high-risk, low-margin environments, where inefficiencies threaten profitability. Digital construction software remains expensive, inconsistent across firms, and difficult to integrate into existing workflows. Without standardized digital tools, clear implementation pathways, and long-term support, construction professionals hesitate to replace proven methods with experimental digital alternatives.28

Unfulfilled Promises and the Growing Skepticism Among Builders

Yet, promotional materials from 84 Lumber, Builders FirstSource, and other digital construction advocates omit these concerns. Their media campaigns frame digital adoption as frictionless, inevitable, and risk-free, ignoring the financial, logistical, and structural challenges that slow implementation.29 By failing to address these barriers, these materials contribute to a widening disconnect between theoretical digital construction and its uneven, often frustrating real-world application.

The industry, then, must confront a fundamental paradox: the longer digital construction remains "the future," the more builders question whether that future will ever arrive.

Section IV: Residential Construction’s Standoff with Tech

Why Skepticism Persists in Residential Construction

Broad skepticism toward digital technology persists among rank-and-file residential construction workers. On the surface, this hesitation seems at odds with the growing influence of digital tools across various industries. However, the longstanding gap between digital construction theory and practical implementation explains much of this reluctance.

This skepticism is not rooted in a rejection of innovation but in the structural and economic realities of residential construction. Many construction professionals operate in a high-risk, low-margin environment, where inefficiencies threaten profitability. Digital solutions, while promising in theory, often introduce new layers of cost, complexity, and uncertainty that make adoption difficult.30 The industry’s experience with overpromised, underdelivered software solutions has only fueled distrust. Builders have seen digital tools marketed as revolutionary, only to find that implementation requires steep learning curves, inconsistent support, and additional costs that eat into already narrow margins.

The “Shock and Awe” Marketing of Digital Construction

The marketing arms race among industry leaders has intensified skepticism rather than alleviating it. Companies compete to demonstrate ever-faster construction times, emphasizing automation, prefabrication, and digital workflows. 84 Lumber’s showcase videos, for instance, promote a vision of residential construction where traditional inefficiencies vanish, replaced by streamlined digital precision.31 These portrayals, however, gloss over the deep technological fragmentation that continues to plague the industry.

McKinsey & Company has repeatedly highlighted the construction sector’s digital fragmentation, noting that while some firms have embraced BIM, AI-driven project management, and prefabrication, most small-to-mid-sized firms lack the infrastructure to implement these systems effectively.32 Unlike large-scale commercial construction, which benefits from centralized planning, residential projects are executed by independent tradespeople, subcontractors, and regional firms. This decentralization makes scaling digital solutions across projects highly challenging.

Beyond Technical Ability: The Cultural and Structural Barriers to Adoption

The assumption that construction workers resist digital tools because of a lack of technical ability does not hold up to scrutiny. Most professionals in the industry already use smartphones and mobile applications for logistics, payroll, and on-site coordination. The issue is not technological illiteracy but rather the disconnect between digital workflows and construction’s hands-on reality.

This cultural attachment to manual craftsmanship plays a significant role in the industry’s cautious approach to digital adoption. Construction has long been a field defined by physical skill and direct, on-the-ground problem-solving. Many builders see technology as a supplementary tool rather than a replacement for expertise, and rightfully so. Unlike factory-based industries where automation can largely replace human labor, residential construction remains a site-specific, highly variable field where experience, adaptability, and craftsmanship remain critical.33

Economic Pressures: The Risk of Digital Investment in Low-Margin Workflows

The financial realities of residential construction further complicate digital adoption. Unlike tech sectors that can afford large upfront investments in digital transformation, most residential construction firms operate with narrow profit margins. The costs of new software, training programs, and technology integration pose a significant risk, particularly when the return on investment remains uncertain. Many firms cannot afford to take on new risks without guarantees that adoption will directly improve profitability.34

This economic constraint explains why many builders hesitate to invest in digital construction tools, despite their theoretical benefits. Firms must balance short-term project efficiency with long-term technological transformation, and given the unpredictable nature of construction cycles, short-term survival often takes priority.

Breaking Through the Skepticism: Harnessing the Power of Data

Overcoming skepticism does not require more marketing spectacle; it demands a fundamental shift in how the industry handles construction data. While residential construction firms often collect massive amounts of project information, much of this data remains unstructured, siloed, and underutilized. McKinsey reports that construction firms only use a fraction of the data they generate, missing critical opportunities to optimize workflows, improve cost estimates, and enhance long-term efficiency.35

The path forward is clear: rather than focusing on speed-driven marketing campaigns, firms should invest in predictive analytics, standardized digital workflows, and industry-wide data integration. If firms can leverage historical project data effectively, they can reduce inefficiencies, improve forecasting, and build a more sustainable approach to digital construction.

For digital transformation to succeed, the industry must move away from gimmicks that promise revolutionary change overnight and instead focus on incremental, evidence-based technological adoption. The future of digital construction lies not in spectacle but in real, measurable improvements in efficiency, cost reduction, and workforce support.

Section V: Breaking the Cycle of Skepticism

The Paradox of Digital Construction Adoption

Everett Rogers’ definition of technology provides a critical framework for understanding why skepticism toward digital construction persists. He writes:

A technology is a design for instrumental action that reduces the uncertainty in the cause-effect relationships involved in achieving a desired outcome. It is a means of uncertainty reduction for individuals that is made possible by the information about cause-effect relationships on which the technology is based…. So a technological innovation creates one kind of uncertainty in the minds of potential adopters (about its expected consequences), as well as representing an opportunity for reduced uncertainty in another sense (that of the information base of the technology).36

Though an American sociologist and communication theorist, Rogers’ framework directly applies to the residential construction industry’s reluctance to adopt digital tools. The fundamental challenge lies in reducing uncertainty for builders, subcontractors, and developers—a process that requires tangible evidence of digital construction’s benefits, not just theoretical promises.

Why Digital Tools Have Failed to Reduce Uncertainty

Despite decades of development, many digital construction technologies have struggled to fulfill Rogers’ definition of uncertainty reduction. The expectation-reality gap is particularly evident in Building Information Modeling (BIM), which has long been positioned as the foundation of digital transformation. While BIM theoretically offers seamless data integration, improved efficiency, and reduced errors, in practice, its implementation has remained fragmented and inconsistent.37

A key reason for this failure is the industry’s poor approach to data management. Although construction firms generate vast amounts of historical project data, this information is often siloed, inaccessible, or discarded entirely—a phenomenon that scholars such as Mattia Pedota have referred to as “dark data.”38 Without properly structuring, analyzing, and applying past project data, firms miss opportunities to optimize workflows, improve cost estimates, and mitigate risk.

From Dark Data to White Data: Turning Information into Action

The key to overcoming skepticism lies in transforming dark data into white data—structured, accessible, and actionable insights that drive informed decision-making. Rather than marketing digital tools as revolutionary, the industry must focus on creating systems that make past project data useful in future builds.

By systematically collecting and analyzing project data, firms can improve cost forecasting based on real-world construction trends. Eliminating inefficiencies becomes more feasible when firms recognize patterns of recurring delays or material waste. Decision-making improves when predictive analytics identify labor shortages and supply chain disruptions before they occur.

When implemented correctly, this data-driven approach aligns perfectly with Rogers’ framework, ensuring that technology actually reduces uncertainty rather than adding new layers of complexity.

Strategic, Not Spectacular: A Practical Approach to Digital Adoption

The future of residential construction does not lie in “shock and awe” marketing campaigns. Instead, firms must prioritize a strategic, data-driven model that builds trust over time. Builders, subcontractors, and developers will only embrace digital construction when they see clear, measurable benefits—not because of flashy time-lapse videos or corporate branding.

The industry must shift away from short-term marketing gimmicks and invest in long-term, incremental digital adoption. Standardized digital workflows must integrate seamlessly across projects and firms. Industry-wide collaboration is necessary to develop shared data ecosystems. Clear implementation frameworks should ensure that new technologies genuinely improve productivity rather than disrupting existing processes.

By focusing on real-world applications and measurable improvements, digital construction can move from speculative innovation to an indispensable tool for the future of residential construction.

Conclusion

The rapid-build showcase videos produced by 84 Lumber and other industry leaders construct a compelling but ultimately misleading narrative of digital inevitability. These promotional materials suggest that residential construction has already crossed the threshold into full-scale digital integration, portraying rapid assembly, seamless workflows, and frictionless automation as the new industry standard. However, as this review has demonstrated, the gap between digital construction theory and its practical implementation remains substantial.

The marketing spectacle of digital construction has historically outpaced the industry’s ability to execute its promises. Nederveen and Tolman theorized in 1992 that a shared digital framework could eliminate on-site errors and enhance project coordination, yet only in recent years have digital tools begun to approximate these expectations. Similarly, Borkowski’s research demonstrates that BIM theory continues to evolve faster than IT solutions can implement it, exacerbating the disconnect between expectation and execution. This fundamental misalignment contributes to widespread industry skepticism, particularly among the rank and file of residential construction.

Much of this skepticism stems from economic, structural, and cultural factors deeply embedded in the industry’s operating model. Residential construction is a high-risk, low-margin environment where builders and developers must prioritize immediate, tangible outcomes over speculative long-term gains. The industry’s fragmentation and decentralization further complicate digital adoption, as small to mid-sized firms, subcontractors, and independent tradespeople lack the centralized infrastructure needed for large-scale technological standardization. Additionally, construction remains a craft-driven profession, and many workers view digital tools as potential threats to hands-on expertise rather than enhancements to traditional skill sets.

Beyond these economic and cultural barriers, the failure to integrate construction data effectively has significantly hindered digital adoption. While digital construction technologies generate vast amounts of project-specific data, much of this information remains, at best underutilized, and, at worst, forgotten after a project concludes. This “dark data,” as scholars such as Mattia Pedota have identified, represents one of the industry’s most significant missed opportunities. By failing to harness, analyze, and apply historical project data, construction firms lose the ability to make predictive decisions, optimize workflows, and enhance long-term efficiency.

Overcoming this long-standing skepticism requires a fundamental shift in how digital construction technologies are presented, implemented, and evaluated. The industry must move beyond marketing spectacle and instead focus on demonstrating measurable, real-world improvements in cost savings, operational efficiency, and project outcomes. The key to genuine technological progress lies not in the promotion of digital tools as revolutionary solutions, but in strategically leveraging data to address industry-wide inefficiencies.

Rogers’ definition of technology as a means of uncertainty reduction offers a valuable framework for understanding why digital construction tools have struggled to gain widespread acceptance. Builders and developers will only embrace these technologies when they demonstrably reduce uncertainty, rather than introduce new layers of risk and complexity. Digital construction cannot fulfill its long-promised potential until it shifts from a project-centric approach to a long-term, data-driven model. Only then can the industry replace skepticism with trust, ensuring that digital construction is not merely the “future,” but a fully realized and actionable present.

Notes

Source: Shock & Awe: A Review of 84 Lumber's Recent Showcase-Build Videos in Historical Context

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