Meet The Disruptors: Ross Maguire Of Azure Printed Homes On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Reduce complexity
The construction industry has layers of complexities. It is one of the most labor-intensive fields in the world and there are not enough skilled workers to do these jobs. This is why construction projects take so long to begin and also to complete. It is also one of the world’s top polluting industries — cement is one of the world’s leading producers of CO2 emissions. These are two of the key elements we focused on because we saw both as complexities that could be reduced with technology.
As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ross Maguire, Azure printed homes.
Ross Maguire, COO and Cofounder of Azure Printed Homes, is a civil engineer and a lifelong construction industry professional. With over a 15 years of frontline construction and civil engineering experience in all aspects of the building industry, Ross cofounded Azure Printed Homes two years ago with Gene Eidelman, the CEO. Ross, a London native, met Gene when he moved to Los Angeles and they worked together in traditional building. The copious amounts of waste in both new construction and renovations, motivated the duo to develop an ecofriendly solution for the home building industry- and Azure Printed Homes was born. They even designed their own 3D printer to produce the modules using recycled plastic bottles.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I grew up outside of London and I’ve been in construction for as long as I can remember. I worked on building sites as a laborer during my school holidays and I always loved mathematics when I was in school. My dad is a financial advisor and my brother trained to be an accountant, so I had done a summer job at an accounting firm and realized very quickly sitting at a desk wasn’t for me. It was my dad who suggested looking for a way to bring my love of math and construction together. That’s what led me to study civil engineering at university, and I loved it. It combines everything I like into one; math, problem solving — and not sitting at a desk all day!
My amazing wife is what brought me to America. We met over seven years ago when I was living in London and she was living in LA. We traveled back and forth for a while but then she convinced me to make the move to California. I got here five years ago and now we have two young daughters and Azure Printed Homes! I met my business partner, Gene Eidelman, shortly after I got to Los Angeles. We clicked immediately and realized there were a lot of synergies in terms of thoughts, beliefs, ambitions and work ethic. We both were in construction and knew there was a lot that needed to be done to improve the industry, which fundamentally has not changed in centuries. When we started Azure, we began working in traditional construction and at the same time started working on the model for Azure Printed Homes. When COVID hit, talking by Zoom became the norm and facilitated our ability to meet with people all over the world to develop our concept for Azure Printed Homes. We had the time to research alternative building materials and 3D printing, and that’s really when Azure was born.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Our initial concept was to find a way to take the labor intensity out of construction. It’s not taking work away from people, although it might sound that way. In the US we currently can’t meet the demand for housing with the workforce we have. We knew that adding automation into the process was key because it would give us a better chance to meet the demand for housing. We also knew we wanted to find a solution to the excessive waste and the inefficiencies that define construction. We then came up with the concept for 3D printing a module. I stress the word concept here. We spoke to people all over the world during those early COVID months. We did a deep dive and researched the possibilities for utilizing recycled waste to print/construct the homes. We finally had a plan but we didn’t have a printer that could do it. We didn’t plan on building our own printer but we had no choice, there weren’t any ready-made solutions that would work. With many collaborators we ended up designing and building our own system capable of achieving the dimensions that we print for to make our homes. We essentially custom designed our own 3D printer to achieve what we had visualized.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
We were very pleased with one of the first units we printed. It wasn’t until we took it off the printer and sized it up that we realized it was too tall to fit through our warehouse door! So, while we were completing all the interior finishes, we raised the warehouse door height and installed new posts and beams (this is where it’s useful coming from construction — we can get ourselves out of tight spaces!). Since then, we’ve paid much closer attention to the height of the printed part once it comes off of the print table, otherwise each new print could get quite expensive!
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
The beauty of the product and process that it takes to make one Azure Printed Home, is that it has grown from a huge global collaboration. We’ve had help and guidance from so many people from all over the world, from so many different backgrounds and industries. They have helped us to pull together a product that demands specialties in so many facets; robotics, chemical and material engineering, manufacturing, structural engineering, the list goes on and on. The world is full of talented people and I’m proud of the global collaboration that we formed to create Azure. We hope to return the favor by globally impacting the lives of many.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
Disruption is clearly positive when you get a better outcome. If Azure Printed Homes is getting more people into housing, using recycled plastic waste instead of destroying trees and damaging the environment with cement, that’s a win-win from where I’m standing. However, disruption can also have negative connotations when it leads to unintended consequences or harm. For instance, some construction companies have disrupted the industry by substituting high-quality, approved building materials with cheaper, subpar alternatives. This disruption may initially appear positive due to cost savings but can have severe consequences. Structures built with substandard materials may lead to safety hazards, structural failures, and long-term maintenance issues. In such cases, the disruption negatively impacts the construction industry’s reputation, compromises the safety of occupants, and ultimately results in increased long-term costs for repairs and replacements.
Can you please share 3 ideas one needs to shake up their industry?
#1 Challenge existing norms in your field
I have seen the inefficiencies in construction consistently throughout my career repeated on almost every project I’ve worked on. The excessive waste in building materials, the need for a large skilled workforce, the environmental damage caused by the materials are among the top concerns. These were the industry “norms” for decades. At Azure we saw technology as the solution to improving these industry “norms” and bringing the industry into the 21st century.
#2 Reduce complexity
The construction industry has layers of complexities. It is one of the most labor-intensive fields in the world and there are not enough skilled workers to do these jobs. This is why construction projects take so long to begin and also to complete. It is also one of the world’s top polluting industries — cement is one of the world’s leading producers of CO2 emissions. These are two of the key elements we focused on because we saw both as complexities that could be reduced with technology.
#3 Use technology to innovate
We are living through an exciting period in technology, especially with AI and 3D printing — these technologies are impacting our lives on an almost daily basis. They are propelling many industries to change and adapt. Yet until recently the construction industry was not using technology in any significant way. In most industries technology can be used to solve problems without the tech people knowing much about the industry. They can look at the industry and see the problems without knowing much about the industry. They know how to get food into the hands of delivery people or how to get books and furniture and shipped to your door. They can do this without knowing anything about restaurants and takeout food or about furniture and books.
They need to understand how technology can improve services in construction and building. Construction doesn’t appear to the “outsider” as something that is an easy fix for technology. You need to understand the components of what goes into building something-the materials, the labor and how these are not efficient before you can see where technology fits.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
We are really just at the beginning of what we believe will be a building transformation. Our goal is not just to benefit our local community or even communities across California. We want our work to benefit those who need it the most, people who have housing insecurity, people who need affordable housing, even shelters for the homeless. Everyone has the basic right to have a home and we want as many people as possible to benefit from our technology and production. One of our goals for the future is to set up micro factories so we don’t have to ship all over the world. Sustainable micro factories will help get homes into local communities faster, reducing even more waste and cutting down on carbon footprint as well.
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
I listen to Ali Abdaal. He is a podcaster based in London. He’s a young entrepreneur who interviews entrepreneurs and business owners about their successes and their failures. As an entrepreneur you’re dealing with problems on a daily basis and there is no roadmap. I like hearing how other entrepreneurs dealt with their challenges and made their vision a reality. When we see successful people they are already at the top of their fields so it is hard to imagine them failing or struggling. Hearing their stories gives you the impetus to pick yourself back up and keep going.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“I’m convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.” Steve Jobs
I think perseverance and resilience are why I am here talking to you now. We came up with a concept which had multiple aspects that hadn’t been attempted before. We had to break through a number of walls along the way, all while maintaining a positive mindset and remaining optimistic through difficult times. The work is the easy part. The positive mindset and optimism are the biggest challenges. I thank my business partner Gene for his unwavering optimism and positivity in the face of adversity.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
It would be nice to get to a place where our future generations will laugh at the fact that we used to bury things that we didn’t want in landfills. There are obviously many ways to recycle materials but we have been using landfills for too long. Plastic is a good example. The technology exists for all polymers to effectively be recycled down to their chemical bonds and just rebuilt from scratch. Right now, it’s just very expensive to do it. But with technology moving so quickly I’m sure we’ll get there sooner than we think. Hopefully we can evolve to a point where nothing at all has to be landfilled and we can just be a much more self-sufficient global community.
How can our readers follow you online?
Please visit our website at https://azureprintedhomes.com or follow our social media channels:
https://www.facebook.com/AzurePrintedHomes
https://www.linkedin.com/company/azure-printed-homes/
https://www.instagram.com/azureprintedhomes
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCro-BXLCbnhDnsKdHfkqnhg
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
