Twenty-one centuries ago, roman military engineer and architect Marcus Vitruvius proposed a simple, profound model to discuss housing innovation. Three principle themes for building—strength, functionality, and beauty—stood out to him as pillars, timeless measures of essential value. Improvements to those pillars are, by nature, transformative. For decades now, and foreseeably into our future, constraints of labor, lots, lending, and chronic human clashes amid architecture, engineering, and construction have blocked improvements to those pillars.
Today, we celebrate 50 examples of people, processes, products, and platforms that dare to defy such constraints and release newfound strength, functionality, and beauty from the tight grasp of the future. Our 2019 Hive 50 list—spanning design, building technology, capital commitment, customer intelligence, and business and consumer strategy—highlights applied brilliance that reflects how the future now defines this community more so than the effect of all the past millennia put together. The honorees will be celebrated at the fourth-annual Hive conference, Dec. 4-5, in Austin, Texas.
Check out the 50 honorees and their accomplishments below.