While invention may remain in some circles the purview of the lone genius, innovation is undeniably social, political, and negotiated, and if successful, can, as the sociologist of technology Madeline Akrich said, “overturn the rules of the game.” Using a commonly accepted distinction from economics, invention refers to discovery, while innovation involves the commercialization of discovery. This suggests that buildings, which are an assemblage of assemblies or products (such as wood, drywall, and steel plates), are more akin to innovation than invention. Michel Callon and Bruno Latour, in writing about markets, emphasize that product innovation significantly influences the organization of society, industrial dynamics, and social movements, much like the scale and scope of architecture (consider the impact of Wright’s Prairie House on housing) (Mallard and Callon Citation2022, 153). Making innovations available to the public requires effective technology transfer, robust intellectual property protection, and adherence to relevant patent laws. Far from being isolated at creation, every innovation is a nexus of ties between social and technical material facilitated through statutes, regulations, mores, environments, contexts—in short, a pantheon of actors (researchers, users, negotiators) in a complex and contingent arrangement (Akrich et al. Citation2002; Branscomb Citation2002; Callon Citation2021), not unlike new building materials, which require manufacturers, transportation networks, testing, and codes, not to mention training for skilled labor, advertising, and some ineffable aesthetic utility.
