Suppose you are an architect and you have recently completed a challenging project: designing and building a sturdy modern house on a sandy stretch of ground where several previous architects had failed. The shifting ground had cracked their one-piece rigid concrete foundations. You vowed not to repeat their mistakes, so you designed a novel foundational system that avoided the use of concrete altogether. You drove steel rods down into rockier soil, created five independent platforms to support five modular units, and then linked the units together with short flexible corridors. You left plenty of room for expansion—the modular design makes it easy for the homeowner to add additional units as needed.
The initial reviews of your modular house are excellent, and other architects begin applying your technique, with good results.1 Imagine your trepidation, then, when a major architectural critic writes a review entitled “A foundation built on sand?”, in...