Ladies first today Re/Cappers, as your lead story is an exquisite Forbes analysis of where we are, and where we gotta go, to have women and youth solve construction’s constrictions.
It’s loaded with nuance and psychology. Specifically, it ponders whether construction might just have visibility and management problems, rather than just a simple gender discrepancy.
And If author Angelica Krystle Donati is correct, whether she knows it or not, it’s probably because of Lillian Gilbreth. This woman is one of profound industrial firsts, a mother of 12, the reason you can open your trash can with your foot, and likely the most divisive person the Re/Cap has Pre/Capped.
At a high level, Gilbreth (1878–1972) reshaped construction, industrial engineering, and workplace management through her groundbreaking integration of psychology and efficiency studies (such workflows are how one winds up the first woman to join the National Academy of Engineering).
After earning a Ph.D. in applied psychology from Brown University, she partnered with her husband Frank Gilbreth to revolutionize labor practices, beginning with their early career in construction. The couple co-owned a construction firm where Lillian observed inefficiencies in manual tasks like bricklaying, leading them to develop time-and-motion studies - filming workers to dissect tasks into elemental motions called “therbligs” (Gilbreth spelled backward). By optimizing body positioning, tool placement, and workflow sequencing, they reduced wasted movements and fatigue, directly improving productivity on job sites - and kinda incidentally creating ergonomics.
In 1912, the Gilbreths pivoted to management consulting, applying their construction-derived principles to industrial workflows. Lillian’s focus on ergonomic design and worker psychology became foundational to modern construction safety and Lean practices.
After Frank’s sudden death, Lillian faced gender bias as clients canceled contracts, but she persevered by focusing on women-centric workspaces. She redesigned Macy’s cashier departments, slashing training time from four months to two days through optimized layouts and equipment placement. During WWII, she advocated for integrating women into labor roles.
As the nation’s first female engineering professor at Purdue University, Gilbreth taught management strategies blending psychology and engineering. She emphasized human-centric workflows, arguing that worker satisfaction drove efficiency - a philosophy now embedded in construction project management.
Oh, and this all is aside from the fact that she pretty much invented the modern kitchen, constructed as we know it from foot-pedal trash cans to shelves for fridges.
A Complex Legacy
Despite her prolific progressive work, Gilbreth's legacy includes a troubling connection to the eugenics movement of the early 20th century. These views reflect the widespread, deeply harmful scientific thinking of her time, when eugenics was erroneously considered a legitimate field of study before its applications became apparent through forced sterilization programs in the U.S. and, of course, Nazi Germany. It’s a sobering reminder of how even pioneering thinkers can be seduced by the flawed scientific paradigms, and self-aggrandizing groupthink, of their era.
And thus, ambivalence permeates Gilbreth's legacy, which nonetheless lives on in every construction site, manufacturing floor, and modern home. Her integration of psychology and efficiency created a framework that continues to influence how we build and organize our world. As today's construction industry grapples with workforce shortages, Gilbreth's career offers a powerful blueprint even if her virtue does not; innovation birthed from unique perspectives, experiences, and tenacity is likely no coincidence - chromosomes be damned.
What’s Cappenin’ This Week
Just under two years ago, Forbes contributor Angelica Krystle Donati penned a masterfully multifaceted piece on how women and the young could help fill the imminent void in construction, one induced by an aging workforce, a shrinking skills pool, and a stagnant gender participation gap.
Well, Donati’s back with an update that may bode well for the coming years, based on data from an array of initiatives from diverse nations. But the numbers aren’t quite what they seem…
Not bad! But there’s a hidden layer. Image credit BLS via FIXR
In the U.S., women’s participation in construction has boomed (see above.) Perhaps shocking to some, women comprise almost 40% of leadership roles and reportedly earn 98.7 cents to the dude’s dollar. Europe presents a slightly less rosy outlook, wherein administrative and managerial growth is underway, but women are practically nonexistent on sites and in technical leadership. Predictably, workplace culture is a through-line in studies of both continents’ data.
Where things get intriguing, however, is where quality supersedes quantity in analysis. Women are promoted at a slower clip, if at all. Referrals are sparse, retention not where it could be. And even as PropTech and ConTech have blossomed, engendering that 45%-construction-participation figure above, women-led startups secured just 2% of the $3.12 trillion in private capital raised.
This sets the stage for where Donati really hits her stride - dissecting construction’s chief problems as image and visibility, not strictly gender-based. Articles don’t get more data driven than this, so click below for exploration of youth perception of the industry, five priorities for 2025 and beyond, McKinsey’s construction output predictions, recruitment, the “broken rung” problem, and the role of social media, among a medley of other meaty topics.
When you call Amazon a competitor, Target’s got a target on your back, and Costco is only some paperwork and a few more years of not changing the price of a hot dog/soda combo away from becoming a formal religion, you better call on innovation!
And Walmart is doing just that, in an effort to polish customer order fulfillment.
When are we getting real-time mapping of where the best greeter is though? Image credit Walmart via GroceryDive
It’s all framed around remapping delivery “zones”. The customized geospatial platform divides geographic areas into precise hexagonal grids, allowing for more accurate mapping compared to traditional ZIP code-based methods. As each hexagon is a tile of sorts, populated with data ranging from store inventory and customer demand to drive times, Walmart can dynamically adjust delivery areas to better serve customers.
There’s actually a bit of mystery - and in turn ongoing probing - into what comprises this custom platform, but we do know it’s built on open-source software and harnesses “advanced geospatial intelligence and a variety of internal and external data sources”. Grocery Dive delivers a brisk 3-minute read with finer details below, including how this is a mere fraction Walmart’s vision for technological immersion.
Tessa Lau, founder of Dusty Robotics in 2020, has lived and breathed automation & droids. But it wasn’t until her own recent home remod, that she saw an estate-sized opportunity.
In a recent interview with Equipment Journal, she explains “I thought it was so manual. I couldn’t believe it because I come from robotics and everything is automated in my world. So, I saw an opportunity to bring more automation and innovation to construction.”
That opportunity has blossomed into a momentous #BIMwin.
We’re all just waiting for the Dusty to settle. Image credit Equipment Journal
Dusty Robotics’ FieldPrint platform is a robot that prints map designs from multiple trades, right there in the trenches, at sub-millimeter accuracy. Since launch, it has printed nearly 19 million square meters. “This little robot that can actually take that digital model and print it full scale on the floor,” Lau explains between copious other detailed remarks. Click below for a snappy interview that digs into AutoCAD/Revit plugins, iPad apps, portal workflows, prefab trends, a tilt-up case case study, and beyond.
One of many monikers for Shanghai is the “Pearl of the Orient”.
Now, it’s doubling as the topaz of twinning thanks to some intrepid, 3cm-precise work of some Chinese scientists, with smarter policing the chief benefit.
An older Shanghai digital twin, here showing Yunfang residential complex, inspired the new policing intent. Image credit Ti Gong via Shine
This new AI-powered replica was built by the Shanghai Surveying and Mapping Institute, in tandem with the Ministry of Natural Resources’ lab for megacity data analytics. It gives law enforcement eyes everywhere, as if Trump and Xi were meeting for a golf match. Officers can use mobile devices to virtually patrol streets, evaluate activity inside buildings, and even check if a property is occupied - all in real time.
Powered by airborne and terrestrial LiDAR and AI-driven 3D modeling, the system layers in live surveillance feeds, vehicle tracking, and heat maps to boost emergency response. It’s rendered in Unreal Engine, because yes, even your city’s digital twin deserves photorealism and no staircase out of place. United News of India examines all this in greater detail, alongside the peer-reviewed paper, heat maps, geospatial digital bases, the virtual roads, and more.
The Hagia Sophia. Image credit History Today. Modern version here.
In the sixth century, Byzantine Emperor Justinian I wanted to build a house of worship so magnificent, it would have been on his era’s “MTV Churches” (cribs weren’t quite a thing then). And he did: Hagia Sophia, a shimmering marvel of Byzantine engineering, topped with a dome so vast and ethereal it seemed to float above the congregation - until, in 558 CE, the heavens apparently decided to file a complaint and send the dome crashing down onto the altar, ambo, and ciborium below.
Let’s set the scene: Hagia Sophia’s original dome, a shallow and daring design, was completed in 537 CE. Its architects, Anthemius of Tralles and Isidoros of Miletus, were relentless boundary pushers. But Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) sits on the North Anatolian Fault, and earthquakes are as common there as imperial intrigue. After a series of tremors, the dome began to crack. On May 7, 558 CE, an earthquake delivered the final blow, sending the eastern section of the dome tumbling down.
Contemporary chroniclers didn’t mince words. The dome was simply too flat, which meant that instead of channeling its weight gracefully down to the ground, it pushed outwards on the supporting piers like a sumo wrestler in a tutu. Over time, these piers deformed under the pressure, and the repeated shaking from earthquakes weakened them further until they finally gave up. To add insult to injury, the original engineers had tried to save on costs by tunneling the piers rather than reinforcing them from below - proving that value engineering is as old as civilization itself.
Justinian, never one to let a little thing like a catastrophic collapse dent his reputation, called in Isidore the Younger (nephew of one of the original architects) to fix the mess. Isidore made the dome higher and steeper by about 20 feet, added structural ribs, and used lighter materials. The new design reduced the lateral forces that had doomed the original, and the ribbed dome helped channel the weight downward, making it far more earthquake-resistant. The rebuilt dome, completed in 562 CE, has largely endured for centuries, surviving many more tremors and giving Hagia Sophia its iconic silhouette.
If 6th-century Byzantines had access to modern tools, Hagia Sophia’s dome might still be original. High-resolution scans of the piers would have exposed hollow sections and stress points, forcing engineers to reinforce them before construction. A virtual model simulating seismic loads could have revealed the dome’s fatal flaw - lateral thrust - and prompted a steeper design before the first brick was laid.
Aerial surveys of the completed dome would have tracked crack propagation after each quake, enabling targeted repairs instead of reactive chaos. Embedded strain gauges in the piers could have provided real-time data on deformation, giving engineers years of warning before collapse. 3D mapping of the dome’s geometry would have flagged uneven weight distribution, prompting design adjustments.
Hagia Sophia’s dome collapse is a classic lesson in the perils of ignoring local conditions and the importance of learning from failure. It wasn’t a failure of ambition, but of foresight. Modern tools let engineers anticipate disasters before they’re set in stone (or brick), because even divine aspirations need earthly due diligence.
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