Organization Science informs ®

Vol. 18, No. 4, July–August 2007, pp. 631–647 doi 10.1287/orsc.1070.0304

issn 1047-7039 ! eissn 1526-5455 ! 07 ! 1804 ! 0631 © 2007 INFORMS

Wakes of Innovation in Project Networks: The Case of

Digital 3-D Representations in Architecture,
Engineering, and Construction
Richard J. Boland, Jr., Kalle Lyytinen
Department of Information Systems, Case Western Reserve University, 10900 Euclid Avenue,
Cleveland, Ohio 44106 {boland@case.edu, kalle@case.edu}

Youngjin Yoo
Fox School of Business, Temple University, 1810 North 13th Street,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122, youngjin.yoo@temple.edu

C hanges in the technologies of representation in a heterogeneous, distributed sociotechnical system, such as a large
construction project, can instigate a complex pattern of innovations in technologies, practices, structures, and strategies.
We studied the adoption of digital three-dimensional (3-D) representations in the building projects of the architect Frank
O. Gehry, and observed that multiple, heterogeneous firms in those projects produced diverse innovations, each of which
created a wake of innovation. Together, these multiple wakes of innovation produce a complex landscape of innovations with
unpredictable peaks and valleys. Gehry’s adoption of digital 3-D representations disturbed the ecology of interactions and
stimulated innovations in his project networks by: providing path-creating innovation trajectories in separate communities of
practice, creating trading zones where communities could create knowledge about diverse innovations, and offering a means
for intercalating innovations across heterogeneous communities. Our study suggests that changes in digital representations
that are central to the functioning of a distributed system can engender multiple innovations in technologies, work practices,
and knowledge across multiple communities, each of which is following its own distinctive tempo and trajectory.
Key words: innovation; diffusion of innovation; innovation theory; IT-induced innovation; wakes of innovation; digital
3-D representation; intercalated innovations; trading zones; Frank Gehry; path creation; path dependency; distributed
systems; architecture; engineering and construction

Introduction Frank Gehry’s accomplishments as an architect are

We studied the adoption of digital 3-D representations
in the design and construction projects of the architect,
Frank O. Gehry, and observed that his adoption of digi-
tal 3-D models as a primary representation gave rise to
multiple and diverse wakes of innovation throughout his
project networks. We use the image of a wake to depict
an innovation as emerging in and traveling across an
innovation space, much as a wake travels through water.
Research on technology innovation and diffusion has put
considerable effort into studying the wake of a single
technology innovation in a typically homogeneous envi-
ronment (Damanpour 1991, Swanson 1994, Zmud 1984,
Rogers 1995, von Hippel and von Krogh 2003, Bijker
1995, Latour 1997, Williams and Edge 1996). However,
in our study, firms involved in Frank Gehry’s project
networks produced multiple and distinct innovations—
each of which became a different wake of innovation.
These multiple wakes overlapped on, intruded on, and
interacted with each other in ways that formed a tur-
bulent, self-propagating system of innovations—a com-
plex, undulating surface of diverse innovations that fed
back into the project, stimulating further innovations in
a staccato fashion.
631
well known, and he has received many distinguished,
international awards in architecture, including the pro-
fession’s highest accolade, the Pritzker Prize. However,
his ability to spawn wakes of technology and process
innovations in the tradition-bound architecture, engi-
neering, and construction (AEC) industries is another
important part of his legacy. Consider, for example, the
following sample of the innovations during the design
and construction of the Peter B. Lewis Building in
Cleveland, Ohio (Figure 1).
In that one project:
(a) the structural engineering firm invented a new
method for designing a steel roof with dramatically
curved surfaces, which won an industry award for engi-
neering innovation;
(b) the drywall contractor invented multiple patent-
able ways to frame undulating wall surfaces, and began
a new line of business, consulting on high-profile con-
struction projects;
(c) the Cleveland fire marshal developed new tech-
niques for modeling smoke evacuation, which were then
presented at their national training academy;

632
Figure 1 The Peter B. Lewis Building
(d) the specialty metal contractor invented a water-
proof shingling system that dramatically reduced the
thickness and cost of the roofing;
(e) the construction manager expanded its scope of
work and begin providing location measurements to con-
tractors, increasing its own risk, but reducing construc-
tion time and construction errors; and
(f) the drywall contractor became the first American
company to license a soundproof plaster system from
Swiss developers, which created a new line of specialty
business for them.
For all these innovations, there exist alternative, tra-
ditional methods that the contractors, fire marshal, or
construction manager could have employed. However,
instead they invented a better way (less costly, more
elegant, or more reliable) to accomplish their part of
the overall project. Also, these innovations were car-
ried forward into subsequent, non-Gehry projects by
the innovating firms, thereby strengthening each individ-
ual organization, as well as the AEC industries. Each
innovation can be thought of as creating a wake in
their respective community of practice, but in the Lewis
Building project, they also served to influence each other
as interacting wakes of innovation. Consider the follow-
ing examples:
1. the new roof structure enabled the exterior and inte-
rior surfaces of the building to directly coincide with
each other—an unusual condition in a complexly shaped
building;
2. the roofing shingle system enabled that parallelism
between the interior and exterior surfaces to be carried
out with extremely tight precision;
3. the precision requirement challenged the interior
surface contractors to invent new, closer tolerance,
curved surface construction techniques;
4. the curved interiors created a new challenge for the
fire smoke evacuation studies, stimulating the invention
of new models of air flows for extremely complex inte-
rior surfaces;
Boland, Lyytinen, and Yoo: Wakes of Innovation in Project Networks
Organization Science 18(4), pp. 631–647, © 2007 INFORMS
5. the precise tolerances increased the risk of loca-
tion errors, leading the construction manager instead of
the contractors to measure the position of all pipes, win-
dows, ducts, etc.; and
6. the precisely curved interior surfaces made the
traditional techniques of acoustic control less desir-
able, stimulating a search for alternative construction
materials.
Note how each innovation responded to the evolving sur-
face of wakes created by prior innovations, and set the
stage for future ones by adding to the turbulence of the
innovation space.
In this paper we seek to develop an explanation of
these wakes of innovation and the recursive quality
of the innovation surface that characterized the Frank
Gehry projects we studied. The innovation turbulence
began in Gehry’s studio, as it moved from being com-
puter phobic to being a world-renowned center of digital
3-D architecture and construction in less than a decade.
In the early 1990s, while other architects were busy
adopting 2-D computer-aided design (CAD) software,
Frank Gehry refused to use 2-D CAD tools in his stu-
dio, in part because he disliked computers, and in part
because his design method relies heavily on working by
hand with physical models. However, by 2000, Gehry
Partners LLC was regarded as the most advanced user of
3-D digital tools in architecture (Lindsey 2001). Behind
that transformation is a fascinating network of innova-
tions in the distributed sociotechnical systems of AEC
projects.
Gehry Partners’ adoption of digital 3-D technolo-
gies disrupted the ecology of practices that had evolved
among AEC project teams, allowing professional and
craft communities to mindfully deviate from their estab-
lished practices of design and construction, and to create
new sets of self-reinforcing relationships between other
actors (Garud and Karnoe 2001). Each firm attended to
their disrupted ecology with reasoning grounded in their
own facts, needs, and specifics (Swanson and Ramiller
2004). They did not act with a global logic, but with the
local logic of their own situation and concerns (Boland
2003). Gehry Partner’s adoption of digital 3-D represen-
tations also altered traditional communication patterns
through which actors learned about each other’s plans
and coordinated their work. Their individual mindful-
ness (Weick and Sutcliffe 2006) and new communication
practices allowed innovations that occurred in one com-
munity to occasionally be inserted into, or intercalated
with, the unique development process of another com-
munity (Galison 1997), which pushed each to expand its
own innovation further, while at the same time strength-
ening interactions among them (Brown and Duguid
2000).
In the remainder of our paper, we first provide an
overview of the traditional practices in an AEC project
network. Next, we synthesize a theoretical framework
Boland, Lyytinen, and Yoo: Wakes of Innovation in Project Networks
Organization Science 18(4), pp. 631–647, © 2007 INFORMS
that describes how wakes of innovation within AEC
networks can interact with one another as one firm’s tra-
jectory of innovation becomes open to discovery, nego-
tiation, and knowledge creation with another’s. We then
use the proposed framework to analyze our case study
data, showing how innovations with digital 3-D repre-
sentations were deployed in designing and constructing
Frank Gehry’s buildings, and how they generated multi-
ple other innovations in the AEC system of design and
construction. Our paper concludes by posing implica-
tions for developing theories of innovation in distributed,
heterogeneous, sociotechnical networks.
Architecture, Engineering, and
Construction as Context for the Study of
Innovation
Complex building projects serve as good models for
the network forms of organizing that are increasingly
found in today’s economy. AEC projects are distributed
(designed and constructed by multiple, autonomous
actors), heterogeneous (composed of communities with
distinct skills, expertise, and interests), and sociotech-
nical (requiring trust, values, and norms, as well as IT
capabilities and complex fabrication processes). For ease
of expression, we will simply refer to complex building
projects as “distributed systems” or “project networks.”
The traditional practice of a standard, AEC design/bid
project begins with an architect working with a client to
create a set of drawings (blueprints) and specifications,
which indicate the intention and form of what is to be
built. Standard contracts assume that these drawings will
be paper based and two dimensional (Stein et al. 2001).
These drawings do not show every detail required in
construction, but instead indicate typical ways in which
construction elements are to be handled. The architect’s
drawings leave it to the contractors and subcontractors to
identify a suitable method of constructing the intended
elements in a workmanlike way. Contractors take the
architect’s drawings and use them as a basis for cre-
ating their own documents for the architect’s approval.
In these “shop drawings,” they show how they intend
to fabricate and install their part of the building. In
preparing their shop drawings, contractors ask archi-
tects questions by submitting RFIs (requests for infor-
mation) or RFCs (requests for clarification). Even in
projects of modest complexity, RFIs and RFCs are to be
expected, and contracts specify the format and timing
that is required for making the requests and providing
responses. Within this framework of 2-D representa-
tions and communications, responsibilities for errors are
traced to either the architect or the engineer for having
specified an inadequate design, or to the contractor for
having failed to apply the correct workmanlike expertise.
The dynamics of these project networks are distinct
from the operations of a single firm, even though sin-
gle firms have frequently been the site for much prior
633
research on innovation. Recent research on innovation,
however, is beginning to recognize the importance of
networks and the limitations of studying innovations in
a single, vertically integrated firm. Next, we will exam-
ine the emerging body of innovation literature that forms
the basis of the theoretical framework of our study.
Theoretical Framework of the Study
Studies of IT innovation have often explored how certain
factors push (Damanpour 1991, Swanson 1994, Zmud
1984) or pull (Rogers 1995) innovations through mar-
kets. More recent work focuses on the user’s active
role in pulling innovations, as in continuous innovation
theories (von Hippel 1998, von Hippel and von Krogh
2003), or on the social processes shaping and stabilizing
an innovation, as in theories of the social construction
of technology (Bijker 1995, Latour 1987, Williams and
Edge 1996). They are primarily studies of a particular
wake of innovation in relatively homogeneous adopter
groups.
Recently, a growing body of innovation research has
shifted its focus from a single innovator to a net-
work of heterogeneous actors (Tuomi 2002, Van de Ven
2005). When innovation is viewed as being a distributed
phenomenon, it is characterized by network effects,
messiness, ambiguity, and combinability (Lyytinen and
Damsgaard 2001, Tuomi 2002, Van de Ven 2005).
Because the network approach assumes an innovation
space to be dynamic and volatile, it includes political
and institutional influences across the network’s multiple
communities. Studies of the communal and networked
features of innovation (Brown and Duguid 2000, von
Hippel 2005) show that increased network diversity pro-
motes new combinations, fosters learning, and enables
faster diffusion (Tuomi 2002), but at the same time,
it can build thicker boundaries that inhibit their spread
(Ferlie 2005). These scholars stress that networked inno-
vations are associated with new types of interactions
among innovators (Van de Ven 2005), which are enabled
and mediated by a wider variety of IT artifacts (Carlile
2002). Thus, IT is not just a target of innovation, but is
also an engine of innovation because it increases knowl-
edge permeability across boundaries, thereby enabling
new knowledge to be created, and distributing it in
new ways.
Traditionally, the pace of innovation in networks is
explained by network topologies (Ahuja 2000, Obst-
feld 2005), which themselves can be transformed by IT
capabilities (Butler 2001). The new emerging patterns
of interaction enable further knowledge creation among
the network’s communities (Tuomi 2002). Indeed, we
observed that new interactions among heterogeneous
actors was the modus operandi in shaping the wakes
of innovations that followed Gehry Partners’ introduc-
tion of 3-D representations in their construction projects.

634
An emphasis on the interactions and relationships among
heterogeneous actors is particularly important in study-
ing IT innovations, because IT is more than just the tools
that are deployed in a project. IT is an environment—a
“web” of equipment, techniques, applications, and peo-
ple that creates a social context, including the history
of commitments that formed that web, the infrastructure
that supports its development and use, and the social
relations and processes of its use (Kling and Scacchi
1982).
Recent studies on network-based innovation have ex-
amined interactions and knowledge sharing within at
most two communities or one firm (Bechky 2003).
Moreover, these studies primarily concentrated on the
structural features of social networks (Ahuja 2000,
Obstfeld 2005), paying little attention to the role of tech-
nology in facilitating new forms of interactions across
networks that span multiple professional communities
(Boland and Tenkasi 1995) or entrepreneurial activities
of individual actors who are embedded in such struc-
tural arrangements. Thus, in order to fully account for
the complex patterns of innovations that we observed
in our study of Gehry’s digital 3-D projects, we need
a theoretical language that allows us to explain diverse
actors’ individual innovations, as well as how those
actors and their activities are interrelated and produce
wakes of innovation spreading beyond the boundaries of
their communities.
In summary, in order to understand and analyze the
wakes of innovation induced by the adoption of digital
3-D technologies, we need to understand: (1) how sep-
arate communities integrate and adopt digital 3-D and
other innovations into their work practices, and (2) how
and under what conditions such innovations can traverse
heterogeneous communities. We will address the first
question with the concept of path creation (Garud and
Karnoe 2001), and the second question with the notions
of trading zones and intercalation (Galison 1997), which
will be explained in the next sections.
Innovation as Path Creation
The concept of path creation (Garud and Karnoe 2001)
is exemplified in Gehry’s willful intention to push the
boundaries of architecture and construction. The theoret-
ical construct of path creation is a reaction against the
limitations of path dependence as used in evolutionary
economics (David 1985, Arthur 1989). Although path
dependence brings a historical systems view to economic
explanations of technological innovation, and recognizes
that temporality and dynamic adaptation to unanticipated
events are important in understanding how technolog-
ical innovations emerge and are adopted over time, it
does not normally include agency as a creative force that
makes history by establishing new cycles of positively
reinforced feedback relations. Path dependence assumes
that human actors are generally passive or conservative
Boland, Lyytinen, and Yoo: Wakes of Innovation in Project Networks
Organization Science 18(4), pp. 631–647, © 2007 INFORMS
with respect to the alternatives available in their environ-
ment, and that they follow reinforced patterns of feed-
back relations in choosing their courses of action and
targets of learning (Arthur 1989, March 1991). Path cre-
ation, in contrast, emphasizes human agency and the
way that actors can and will mindfully deviate from
what appears to be the common expectation (a tradition-
ally reinforced pattern of action) in order to sample new
experience, explore new forms of practice, and create
new resources (Garud and Karnoe 2001).
Trading Zones and Intercalation of Innovations
Although path creation highlights an actor’s entrepre-
neurial deviation from established patterns of practice as
a key source of innovation, it neither explains how such
deviations are sustained and expanded, nor how they
relate to other actors’ path-creating activities. In Gehry
Partners’ building projects, there was no lone actor devi-
ating mindfully. Quite the contrary, multiple actors were
deviating mindfully in response to challenges posed
by Gehry Partners’ digital 3-D representations—often
in unexpected and unrelated communities. These com-
munities invented novel uses of 3-D representations,
crafted new knowledge and skills with them, enacted
new construction practices, and generated new organi-
zational forms (Yoo et al. 2006). What we observed
was a series of abrupt and unexpected breakdowns in
the established systemic relationships that had evolved
over many centuries within and across AEC communi-
ties. The AEC industry typically follows long-standing
traditions and well-established structural arrangements
in their project governance, in which each element in a
project’s system of relations is interrelated and interde-
pendent with others. A significant change in one element
in the AEC system can disturb the established pattern
of relations among other elements (Churchman 1968).
This is especially true when the change affects the prin-
ciple forms of representation among project actors, dis-
turbing their ability to communicate and coordinate. The
wakes of innovations that we saw were an expanding
trial-and-error search for new configurations of relation-
ships among the actors, ideas, and technologies in AEC
projects. We saw these new relationships take shape in
sporadic patterns as actors’ paths crisscrossed at criti-
cal junctures of a project, propelled by the expanded
deployment of 3-D representations for a specific design
challenge, or a local construction task.
The image of wakes captures the spreading patterns of
mutually dependent and reinforcing deviations that fol-
lowed engagements with 3-D representations in specific
contexts. However, this image of a sociotechnical system
resetting its dynamic equilibrium—no matter how vivid
it was for us—did not explain why it was unfolding in
front of our eyes. We felt a pressing theoretical need
to delve more deeply into this phenomenon. In mak-
ing sense of the staccato-like spurts of innovation that
Boland, Lyytinen, and Yoo: Wakes of Innovation in Project Networks
Organization Science 18(4), pp. 631–647, © 2007 INFORMS
we observed, we drew upon Galison’s (1997) seminal
study of the history of microphysics in the 20th century.
Galison reveals the dynamics of concurrent and inde-
pendent paths of innovation associated with at least three
communities necessary to do microphysics. These com-
munities are concerned with instruments (measurement
and observation), experiments (design and execution),
and rival theories. He shows that each of these commu-
nities innovates at different rates and generates its own
(path-dependent) innovation trajectory. Innovation shifts
within and between communities are not simultaneous—
a shift in theory is not necessarily accompanied by a
synchronic shift in instrumentation or experimentation.
He refers to this staccato pattern as an intercalated pro-
cess of change, in which multiple innovations that occur
at different rates and times in the different communities
are inserted into the project network.
Galison’s idea of intercalated innovations across mul-
tiple communities offered us a fruitful way to make
sense of the heterogeneous and nonlinear innovation pro-
cesses we observed. Like microphysics, the AEC indus-
tries consist of many distinct communities, each with
a unique professional identity and its associated exper-
tise, skills, tools, and technologies. These communities
chart their own innovation paths, which follow their
own logic at their own tempos, and produce intercalated
changes as their paths cross into each other’s innovation
trajectories. The organization and structure of commu-
nity boundaries, which either enable or inhibit cross-
boundary learning and knowledge sharing, are critical in
shaping innovation trajectories of each community and
the set of communities as a whole. In particular, we
need to explore what makes boundaries permeable so
that dynamic learning can take place.
Galison (1997) observes that structural features such
as formal organization charts, responsibilities, and con-
trol structures, as well as social networks and informal
communications defined by friendships, mentor-student
relationships, memberships in committees, or traffic
patterns of buildings, all affected the permeability of
boundaries and interaction of knowledge needed to
do microphysics. He observed that when community
boundaries cross or overlap during a project, trad-
ing zones can emerge (Kellogg et al. 2006). In these
trading zones, rudimentary cross-specialty languages can
develop, allowing formerly distinct knowledge to flow in
both directions. Galison sees this as similar to the pidgin
and creolized languages that emerge when different cul-
tures come into sustained close proximity. The stronger
and richer the trading zone, the easier it is for learning
to travel from one community into another, and for com-
munities to coproduce new knowledge. Trading zones
are thus both physical and cognitive arenas for commu-
nities with separate innovation trajectories to negotiate,
collaborate, and learn through mutual perspective mak-
ing and perspective taking (Boland and Tenkasi 1995).
635
These three concepts—path creation by entrepreneurial
actors, intercalated innovations across communities, and
the intensity of interactions in trading zones at perme-
able boundaries—will be used to explain how and why
wakes of innovations across AEC communities followed
the adoption of digital 3-D representations in Gehry
Partners’ projects.
Research Setting and Method
According to Yin (1994, p. 40), a single case study can
be useful when the purpose of the study is revelatory
in nature. In our case studies of Gehry Partners’ build-
ing projects, we sought: (a) to examine how patterns
of diverse innovations unfolded within and across dis-
tributed systems; and (b) to analyze the mechanisms by
which such innovations take place and interact in their
project networks. With a single set of cases, we sought
to firmly ground our theoretical accounts with empir-
ical observations (Eisenhardt 1989, Martin and Turner
1986). Overall, we expected these theoretical accounts
to offer faithful explanations of the wakes of innovation
in the distributed systems of the large AEC projects we
studied.
During our study, we conducted interviews with the
architects, engineers, construction managers, and sub-
contractors who worked on a range of Gehry Partners’
projects. We visited the home offices of participants
to review their internal processes, to examine construc-
tion documents with them, and to observe their design
and construction practices. The objectives of these inter-
views were to identify: (a) the ways in which the various
actors experienced the digital 3-D representations used
by Gehry Partners to be different from their usual doc-
umentation and information-sharing practices (i.e., was
there a change in routines and knowledge related to their
use of digital 3-D representations indicating changes in
their trading zones?), (b) the ways in which the actors
adapted to those differences (i.e., how these new repre-
sentations and boundary exchanges related to their own
invention of new routines in construction and design
practices), (c) the difference it made to their practice
(i.e., did these deviations lead to new and reinforced
modes of experiential learning and innovation?), and (d)
the ways in which they communicated or shared their
innovation experiences with other communities (i.e., did
learning take place in trading zones?).
In collecting the data, we were particularly interested
in how the deployment of digital 3-D leads to the gen-
eration of new knowledge, acquisition of new technolo-
gies, retraining of employees, hiring of employees with
new skills, restructuring of organizations, changes in
routines, changes in how actors perceived and enacted
their environment, changes in how actors related to
other actors, and ultimately, changes in an actor’s iden-
tity. We first focused on how Gehry Partners changed

636
their work practices following their adoption of digital
3-D representations. Thereafter, we examined how their
clients, contractors, engineers, and regulators appropri-
ated digital 3-D tools. To accomplish our research goals,
we asked Gehry Partners associates (partner architects,
designers, project architects, and CATIA™ operators)
how designing and constructing recent buildings (and the
Peter B. Lewis building in particular) differed from their
earlier projects, and what mindful deviations took place.
Second, we asked contractors and regulators involved
in Gehry projects to compare and contrast that expe-
rience with other projects they have had in the past
years. We also asked them about projects subsequent to
their involvement in the Gehry project in order to assess
ways in which innovations from the Gehry project were
carried forward into later projects. We videotaped and
photographed models and drawings of buildings, and
followed demonstrations of how they used 3-D and other
digital technologies and what changes in their work
practices occurred to help understand how knowledge
was generated and shared. We started with a set of ini-
tial interviewees for each project obtained from sponsors
or Gehry Partners. We updated and expanded the list
through snowballing as we traced the network of rela-
tions associated with each construction project.
A total of 83 interviews—48 interviewees from 16
organizations—were conducted.1 Most interviews were
transcribed and analyzed verbatim. We also contacted
some interviewees afterwards to clarify issues raised in
the interviews and to collect additional documents from
them. Our data collection branched out from an initial
focus on three Gehry Partners’ projects (the Peter B.
Lewis Building, the MIT Stata Center, and the Princeton
Science Library) as we traced the involvement of key
actors in earlier and later Gehry Projects. Following
these actors forward and backward in time led us to
study aspects of the following additional Gehry projects:
the “Fish Sculpture” at the Barcelona Olympics, the
Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, the Experience
Music Project in Seattle, the Millennium Band Shell in
Chicago, and the Bard College Center for the Perform-
ing Arts. Following the recommendations of Eisenhardt
(1989), Boyatzis (1998), and Yin (1994), we then repeat-
edly read the transcripts and interview notes and viewed
the photos and video streams to identify key themes and
topics in each interviewee’s report of their use of 3-D
representations and their participation in the construction
project.
Innovating with Digital 3-D Representations
by Gehry Partners
Due to the distributed nature of the AEC system, path-
creating innovations did not always begin with Gehry
Partners. Sometimes it was the software developers,
sometimes the contractors, and sometimes the fabrica-
tors who initiated a new wake. However, we note that
Boland, Lyytinen, and Yoo: Wakes of Innovation in Project Networks
Organization Science 18(4), pp. 631–647, © 2007 INFORMS
Gehry Partners LLP played a central role in innovating
with 3-D technologies, and the complexity of Gehry’s
designs, along with the use of 3-D representations, cre-
ated the trading zones in which the wakes of innovations
occurred. We will next describe the main uses of 3-D in
Gehry’s office and the nexus of contexts in which other
actors applied and appropriated 3-D technologies.
Gehry Partner’s Use of Digital 3-D Technologies
Over the last decade the use of digital 3-D representa-
tions such as CATIA™ and Rhino™ software has become
more commonplace in AEC due to the lowered cost and
improved functionality of 3-D tools. In many ways, dig-
ital 3-D is a potentially disruptive innovation because
it uses enhanced computer capabilities to fundamentally
change the representational systems (or “genres”) by
which knowledge about a building is represented, com-
municated, manipulated, and shared. It meets the defini-
tion of radical innovation (Zaltman et al. 1973) in that it
is a “significant departure from existing practices” cog-
nitively, materially, and relationally. In what follows we
highlight the main functionalities of the 3-D software
tools that have been adopted in Gehry’s office between
1992–2004, and the benefits they offered (see Lindsey
2001 for detailed description of their use of 3-D CAD
in their design practices).
Digital 3-D representations are more interactive and
intelligent than 2-D representations (Shih 1996), and
allow more daringly shaped structures to be built cost
effectively. Three-dimensional tools allow for a full
visualization of designs in actual scale, and support
simulation as well as integration and coordination of
detailed design information for digital manufacturing.
When fully developed, a digital 3-D representation is a
complete digital prototype of a building that acts like
the actual building. A digital 3-D prototype can reflect
all elements of the design and construction process and
permits different tasks and elements of the building to
be dynamically interconnected, so that multiple actors
can coordinate and share their knowledge more openly
(Lacourse 2001). Digital 3-D also enhances designers’
cognition by allowing multiple aspects of a building
to be displayed in a single representation and explored
interactively (Baba and Nobeoka 1998). It also enables
designers to visually move back and forth between views
of detail and views of the whole in a hermeneutic pro-
cess of learning (Boland et al. 1994). In addition, digital
3-D affects how design information is used by project
stakeholders, making previously tacit design knowledge
explicit (Yap et al. 2003) and enabling richer, more
detailed knowledge transfer and interactions. This fea-
ture was critical for Frank Gehry because he strives to
fully engage his clients, consultants, and contractors dur-
ing the design process.
Another particularly valuable aspect of 3-D represen-
tations is that they integrate structural elements of the
Boland, Lyytinen, and Yoo: Wakes of Innovation in Project Networks
Organization Science 18(4), pp. 631–647, © 2007 INFORMS
building design (such as size, material properties, and
cost) with its 3-D geometry (or solid modeling). The
combined geometric and structural information can be
stored, modified, and later reused through a repository
(Toupin 2001). Designers can easily manipulate complex
surface geometries, more freely experiment with non-
traditional shapes, and quickly explore their costs and
structural implications, which aligns with Gehry’s exper-
imental design style (Lindsey 2001). Changes to sections
of an integrated 3-D model can be automatically prop-
agated (Argyres 1999), showing consequent changes to
adjacent sectors of the building, and helping to manage
complex design processes (Greco 2001). For all these
reasons, 3-D representations have the potential to dra-
matically reduce the cost, effort, and error rates of design
and construction projects (Koutamanis 2000).
Global positioning systems can be combined with 3-D
tools to change the traditional process of measurement
at a construction site by creating accurate location data
and managing it centrally as part of a complete digi-
tal prototype (Gragg 1999). Three-dimensional represen-
tations of the building show every point on a line or
surface as an "x! y! z# Euclidian coordinate relative to
an established absolute X = 0, Y = 0, Z = 0 point at
the building site. Instead of locating building elements
in relation to each other with a tape measure, special-
ized surveyors locate sets of absolute points within a
3-D space,2 thus reducing the possibility of propagating
measurement errors. Three-dimensional representations
can also be used to generate accurate data for guiding
downstream fabrication. As a result, Gehry partners have
intensively collaborated with a new breed of contractors,
like A. Zahner & Co. and Permasteelisa, who are lead-
ers in the use of advanced digital fabrication techniques
(Koutamanis 2000).
In the next section, we summarize our main findings
under four headings that emerged from our analysis of
the interviews and documentary data. First, we present
how Gehry Partners adopted 3-D technologies from the
aerospace industry. Second, we examine a series of path-
creating events within Gehry Partners that surrounded
the initial adoption of 3-D. Third, we explore the uses of
digital 3-D technologies within the heterogeneous net-
work of actors in construction projects. These findings
show how trading zones emerged among participating
communities and how intercalation of innovations took
place. Finally, we discuss how the multiple path-creating
activities within Gehry Partners’ projects resulted in a
stream of innovations among participating firms at dif-
ferent times and generated the wakes of innovation we
observed. These wakes result from concurrent path cre-
ation events in technologies, work arrangements, con-
struction methods, and forms of knowledge among a
project’s architects, engineers, construction managers,
contractors, and trades. These multiple innovations were
never synchronized, but similar to Galison’s analysis
637
(1997), they were sporadic and opportunistic—forming
and moving between firms as each firm followed its own
local logic and innovation trajectory.
In the Beginning: Intercalation of 3-D from
Aerospace into Frank Gehry’s Design Practice
Frank Gehry’s design method is based on building phys-
ical, three-dimensional models by hand, which, ironi-
cally, facilitated his appropriation of 3-D technologies.
His method is to always begin with a free-form, impres-
sionistic sketch intended to convey the spatial and emo-
tional sense he is trying to achieve with the building,
which he calls a “dream image.” (Frank Gehry, Decem-
ber 6, 2004). After that, he and his colleagues build
models with wood, paper, metal, cloth, plastic, or what-
ever is at hand in an effort to explore the design ideas
latent in his original sketch. From the earliest massing
models, to rough study and design models, to the more
refined final models, there is no drafting on paper and
no 2-D CAD involved. As one of the staff expressed it:
We persisted much longer in Frank’s office where if you
had a computer, then you weren’t a real architect. You
know, you were some kind of drafting support team. (Reg
Prentice, November 13, 2003)
During a single design project, hundreds of physical
models are constructed to explore design options and
alternative forms. They include models of the site and
its surroundings, models of interior spaces, models of
the entire building, and models of especially important
elements of the building. The design team works at mul-
tiple scales simultaneously (usually three) because each
scale reveals different problems and possibilities with
the evolving design. Other architects use physical mod-
els, but not as their primary design and thinking tools
as Frank Gehry does. They use physical models primar-
ily as presentation devices with their clients, not as a
tool for thinking during design. In an important sense,
Gehry’s emphasis on physical models and lack of expe-
rience with 2-D CAD tools meant lower learning barri-
ers in adapting to digital 3-D. When they began using
3-D tools, Gehry’s staff did not have to unlearn practices
that centered on using digital 2-D. In contrast, they were
able to build upon their physical 3-D design practice by
digitizing their most precise physical models.
A fortuitous event that enabled Frank Gehry’s adop-
tion of 3-D came in the late 1980s, when he won a
competition for the design of the Disney Concert Hall
in Los Angeles, which he worked on in several phases
during the 90s until the hall finally opened in the fall
of 2003. Disney Concert Hall was much larger than any
of the projects Gehry had undertaken to that date. To
successfully carry out its design and construction, Frank
Gehry recruited Jim Glymph to join his office as a senior
partner. Jim had extensive experience and was known for
his design ability, his deep technical knowledge of con-
struction, and his project management skills. Jim firmly

638
believed that computer-based tools would be necessary
to support the design and construction of the increas-
ingly complex surface geometries imagined in Gehry’s
studio. He began to explore computer tools that would
satisfy some or most of their needs, but concluded that
none of the available tools for architectural design (e.g.,
AutoCAD) were suitable.
The architectural commission that triggered adoption
of digital 3-D technology at Gehry Partners was the
design of a pavilion for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
After completing the Pavilion, Frank Gehry proposed
construction of a separate Fish Sculpture on the Olympic
grounds. He had long been fascinated by fish shapes,
and had developed a physical model of his sculp-
ture, but no detailed plans, when the proposal was
accepted. The Fish Sculpture had an extremely tight,
six-month timetable and a limited budget. At this highly
constrained moment, Glymph renewed his search for
suitable software tools, and found that the CATIA™ sys-
tem, which had originally been developed to design the
French Mirage fighter jet, filled many of their needs and
could offer a possible solution. In addition to adopting
the CATIA™ software, Glymph proposed that they work
closely with a small team of contractors who would also
use the tool, and they could attempt to do the Fish Sculp-
ture project “paperless.”
These unique events—the Disney Concert Hall com-
petition, the recruitment of Jim Glymph, and the accep-
tance of the Fish Sculpture project—were, in retrospect,
turning points that set the stage for a significant shift in
the trajectory of Frank Gehry’s architectural practice in
ways that were not evident at the time. The Fish project
enabled them to gain positive experience in using 3-D
representations through an entire construction project,
and to modify their design practice to benefit from 3-D
tools.
During the Fish Sculpture project, Gehry and the con-
tractors deviated from several traditional building prac-
tices in order to realize the benefits of using digital 3-D
models. As Jim Glymph recounts it:
The first project (using 3-D) was the most successful we
may have ever had. " " " And what convinced us was we
got the job done a month early. Everybody made money,
there were no extras – that never happens. That convinced
us that “wait a minute, what we just did because we
had to, maybe we should be doing this all the time, it
worked.” But the other thing that happened was a lot
of (management) rules were suspended in order to allow
that to happen " " " . (Jim Glymph, November 9, 2002)
The Fish construction turned out to be a striking
success—a daring sculpture completed ahead of sched-
ule and on budget. The project significantly increased
Gehry Partners confidence in the use of digital 3-D tech-
nology, as well as their belief that if they could effec-
tively break from traditional practices within the industry,
they could create better collaboration on projects and
Boland, Lyytinen, and Yoo: Wakes of Innovation in Project Networks
Organization Science 18(4), pp. 631–647, © 2007 INFORMS
improve the quality of outcomes. The software capabili-
ties of CATIA were just one element in the many inno-
vations that emerged across the sociotechnical network
of the Fish Sculpture project. The unique work practices
that they enacted, with architects, fabricators, and con-
structors together in one trailer, and the new knowledge
base provided by the 3-D building model, along with
intense communication protocols, fewer management
oversight restrictions, and a thoroughly collaborative
problem-solving approach, were necessary additional
innovations. The Fish project effectively created new
trading zones among architects, engineers, and fabrica-
tors. They learned that the use of 3-D representations
allowed project members to participate in frequent trad-
ing of expertise and coproduction of knowledge during
all phases of design and construction. This intense level
of continuous collaboration and invention has never hap-
pened again, although it has continued to serve as an
ideal “organizing vision” for present and future projects.
Path Creation: Integration and Expansion of
3-D into Frank Gehry’s Design Practice
The experience of the Fish Project taught Gehry Part-
ners that 3-D tools could be effectively integrated into
their firm in ways that complemented and empowered
their existing design practice. The 3-D representations
offered higher levels of precision and flexibility, gener-
ated 2-D drawings as a by-product, and also allowed the
continued use of physical models as the primary design
medium. Digital 3-D tools also enabled them to scale
small physical models up to larger prototypes without
losing the subtleties of a design. As a result, 3-D rep-
resentations became a central element of the emerging
digital design practice at Gehry Partners. Two significant
steps in developing their digital practice were the design
and construction of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao,
Spain (1991–1997), and the Experience Music Project
(EMP) in Seattle, Washington (1995–2000). However,
Gehry Partners have remained committed to the use of
physical models as the primary medium for exploring
design ideas:
When we’ve got a very free-form gestural model, which
has all this energy in it, one of the things is to capture it.
And if you go to substandard Euclidian geometry and you
cut sections, and you build this thing up, and you get nice
arcs that are close and everything just seems so close. But
when you get the model put back together it’s dead. And
the measurable differences are tiny and " " " even I was sur-
prised. " " " he (Frank Gehry) tried to create an illusion in
this building (Bilbao) and it’s a very subtle curvature that
you would think would make no difference. The building
without it is completely dead. So there are these gestu-
ral things, which I think, are why people have emotional
reactions to Frank’s buildings. There’s something about
building something with your hands that leaves some-
thing we can all recognize, maybe not consciously, but
subconsciously. It humanizes it.
(Jim Glymph, November 9, 2002, p. 4)
Boland, Lyytinen, and Yoo: Wakes of Innovation in Project Networks
Organization Science 18(4), pp. 631–647, © 2007 INFORMS
I don’t believe that a computer model will ever be able
to tell me what a physical model can.
(Craig Webb, Design Partner, Gehry Partners, Decem-
ber 22, 2003)
The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain was their
first use of CATIA™ to support documentation and com-
munications among contractors during a large-scale con-
struction project, although 3-D technologies were used
only for the most difficult and critical parts of the
exteriors and main gallery designs. In the EMP build-
ing, Gehry Partners expanded the use of CATIA™ and
employed 3-D representations as the primary contract
documents for the whole building and all its parts. Dur-
ing EMP, they began to use layered CATIA™ models to
communicate separately with different trades and con-
tractors. During the Peter B. Lewis Building project
(1997–2002), they used CATIA™ ’s capabilities during
design to identify double curved surfaces in complex
exterior and interior geometries in order to reduce con-
struction cost. By the time Gehry Partners were com-
pleting work on the Lewis Building, their architects had
begun using CATIA™ to create fast prototypes during the
initial design phase of their projects in order to develop
early and accurate cost estimates.
Gehry Partners use of 3-D representations to commu-
nicate with contractors and clients throughout design and
construction has not decreased their reliance on physi-
cal models—instead, it has added new routines to their
design practice, whereby they analyze constructability,
cost, and even maintenance- or energy-related aspects of
their architectural designs earlier than previously possi-
ble. During their appropriation of 3-D technologies by
Gehry Partners, the horizon of what they feel confi-
dent to design and build has expanded, and the agency
they can jointly mobilize by using digital 3-D represen-
tations has become more powerful and pervasive. This
has resulted in a positive feedback cycle (Levitt and
March 1988, March 1991) in which learning how to
use 3-D technologies throughout the construction pro-
cess has enabled more daring structural forms to be suc-
cessfully built. The growing sense of confidence is well
echoed by comments one of the lead architects made
about designing the Peter B. Lewis Building:
" " " CATIA™ makes the whole process and the whole
method to build it somewhat predictable. And that’s what
all our processes are looking for. " " " Without CATIA™ , it
would have not been possible to do it (the Lewis Build-
ing). (Gerhard Mayer, September 20, 2002, p. 8)
Building Trading Zones with 3-D Tools
By adopting 3-D representations in their design practice,
Gehry Partners disrupted many traditional patterns of
interaction that are usually taken for granted within the
AEC system, because they shared more information with
more project members earlier. This increased boundary-
spanning and knowledge-trading activities during the
639
projects, enabled design and construction knowledge to
flow more freely in both directions, and provided oppor-
tunities for active trading among the different commu-
nities. Within these newly invigorated trading zones,
alternative beliefs and knowledge could be negotiated
without homogenizing the architect’s intention for the
building, or the unique practices within the different
communities. (Boland and Tenkasi 1995).
The traditional 2-D based process in AEC resembles
Manning’s (1979) concept of a semiotic loose coupling
that characterized interactions between a police com-
munication system and people making emergency calls.
Like Manning’s police communication system, the stan-
dardized 2-D blueprints enabled actors in diverse com-
munities to “conventionalize” their interactions, creating
an adequate basis for coordination (Stinchcombe 1959,
Bechky 2006). Actors in AEC projects know how to
encode, classify, decode, and transform ideas with the
2-D code shared by all participants. When such 2-D
information crosses boundaries among communities dur-
ing a project, it: (a) maintains the integrity, consis-
tency, and autonomy of each participating actor; and
(b) loosens couplings between actors by hiding details of
their construction practices that cannot be readily com-
municated through 2-D drawings.
Such loose coupling is well entrenched in most con-
struction practices, as the project architect for the Peter
B. Lewis building explained to us:
With typical projects, many architects have a standoff
position from contractors. They just basically enforce
their documents and their specifications and criticize.
And they expect that the contractor knows how to do
everything. They don’t talk about process - they just talk
about results. Architects run around and measure. Mea-
sure if the deviation is in acceptable limits and write up
reports " " " " (Gerhard Mayer, September 20, 2002, p. 11)
However, when 2-D blueprints were replaced with dig-
ital 3-D representations at the AEC community bound-
aries, the traditional contract language and associated
principles of loose coupling did not provide actors with
sufficient ability to understand and negotiate their new
roles, or with a sufficient understanding of their risk.
This is the case even though digital 3-D representa-
tions carry much more information about the building
than the 2-D images do, because the standard contrac-
tual relations and traditional communication patterns in
the construction industry are inseparable from the use
of 2-D representations at the community borders (Stein
et al. 2001). They may have more information with 3-D
representations, but they also have less ability to trace
the cause of an error, or even to agree on what infor-
mation the representation contains, because the number
of perspectives it makes available is indefinitely large.
Thus, the use of 3-D representations at community bor-
ders on an AEC project challenged the key organiz-
ing practices and encouraged new interactions in trading

640
zones, where knowledge creation across communities
could take place.
In these trading zones, the architects, engineers, con-
struction managers, contractors, and subcontractors could
continually redefine and mutually adjust their relation-
ships through the use and interpretation of digital 3-D
representations as “boundary objects” (Star and Griese-
mer 1989). Such changes made project management
an interdependent and mediated form of organization,
displaying what Thompson (1967) calls coordination
through “mutual adjustment.” These new project net-
works acted more like tightly coupled systems, in which
actors are less independent, with identities that become
blurred as their tasks affect each other continuously, sig-
nificantly, and directly.
A dramatic example of how these new trading zones
operated comes from GQ Contractors, the plaster and
drywall subcontractor on the Lewis Building project.
Their chief operating officer reported that in his 20 plus
years of working in the industry, he had spent fewer
than eight hours in architects’ offices. Normally, they
would receive drawings, analyze them to make a bid,
rework them as shop drawings if they were awarded
the contract, and do the work. On the Lewis Building
project, however, he spent the equivalent of 17 weeks
in the architect’s office, working with 3-D modelers on
detailed CATIA™ models to plan how the framing and
drywalling could be done.
I have never, ever spent more than an hour in an archi-
tect’s office prior to this job. And I spent 22 trips, 4 and
5 days at a time in their office. And I spent some days
where I was in there at 8:00 in the morning and I didn’t
get out of there until 10 or 11 at night, working on this
frame. (Ed Seller, September 18, 2002, p. 8)
Similarly, in these newly shaped trading zones, the
temporal organization of work deviated significantly
from that of traditional construction work. The construc-
tion manager and key contractors were brought into the
process at the very beginning stages of the design, with a
“design assist” contract. During this phase, key contrac-
tors were involved in developing the 3-D models in order
to help invent better ways to build parts of the building
and to reduce cost. The design assist contract creates
a special trading zone for mutual learning, negotiation,
and invention between architect and contractor during
the design process, without a commitment to award the
actual construction contract.
Finally, the knowledge created in trading zones can
change the temporal structure of a project. Some activi-
ties that had been traditionally carried out in a sequen-
tial order could now be done concurrently, tightening
their interdependencies. The window fitting at the Lewis
Building provides a vivid example of this. The long-
standing method in construction is a loose coupling
technique of making “field measurement” of “as built”
Boland, Lyytinen, and Yoo: Wakes of Innovation in Project Networks
Organization Science 18(4), pp. 631–647, © 2007 INFORMS
conditions before fabricating the next element to be
installed. In fitting the windows, this would mean mea-
suring the actual sizes of the openings in the concrete
walls before preparing the metal frames and glazing
for installation. At the Lewis Building project, however,
because of the extremely complex geometries of the
walls and the windows, manufacturing of metal frames
and glazing required more lead time than the traditional
approach of field measurement would allow. The con-
struction manager recounted this incident as follows:
So, [the window and glazing subcontractor] came to me
and says, I can field measure but you won’t get the win-
dow for 16 weeks, and so therefore you can’t put the
brick in. I can’t do that. I said, you go make it per
CATIA, I’m waiving your requirement to field measure,
I’m guaranteeing that concrete opening will be where it’s
supposed to be, and that that window will fit provided
you build it the way the architect designed it " " " " (Dan
Seib, March 4, 2003, p. 42)
In the future, 3-D representations are expected to en-
gender even more open and intense trading zones as
the models become more fully parametric and con-
tain cost, construction time, and other information for
each element of the building. Theoretically, such 3-D
representations will form one central model with all
the information needed by all the contractors and
consultants—information that contractors previously had
to create by themselves from the architect’s 2-D
blueprints. A subcontractor commented explicitly about
this increasingly open and intense trading within his own
firm:
It used to be this problem that Zahner had: this con-
crete wall separating the shop from the office, " " " Well
then they built the engineering into the shop. And they’re
going on and moving into the shop now. Then all of a
sudden all the people in the shop are coming in here
#the office$ mixing in with engineering people and mix-
ing people from the trade and so it’s kind of like, tear
that wall down. (Bill Zahner, May 17, 2002, p. 22)
Generating Wakes of Innovation
The use of 3-D during the design and construction of
the projects that we studied expanded and strengthened
Gehry Partners’ architectural practice. However, con-
structing Frank Gehry’s designs could not have been
accomplished without myriad other innovations emerg-
ing from multiple actors in trading zones between the
different communities that collaborated with them.
These involved intersecting wakes of innovations in
a community’s tools, technologies, work practices, and
organization structures and strategies. The multiple inno-
vations and the trading zones that enabled them to
flow between communities emerged from each firm’s
response to the potential of 3-D technologies in light
of their own unique history and strategy in the project
setting. Not all firms involved in the projects made
Boland, Lyytinen, and Yoo: Wakes of Innovation in Project Networks
Organization Science 18(4), pp. 631–647, © 2007 INFORMS
significant adjustments or innovations in response to the
disruption posed by 3-D. Some, like a concrete con-
tractor and a steel fabricator that we studied, had little
interest in changing their work practices or technologies,
because they believed their traditional practices were
sufficient. Others innovated deeply, like A. Zahner and
Co. (metal fabricators), DeSimone Structural Engineer-
ing, and Columbia Wire and Iron, who were already far
along in their use of 3-D, and pushed even further. Still
others, agnostics like the construction manager (Hunt
Construction) were more cautious in embracing innova-
tions, accommodating 3-D technology at the work site to
the extent that they could effectively work and trade with
Gehry and other contractors. As a result, they pragmat-
ically incorporated some lasting innovations into their
firms, but they did not make any large-scale practice
changes.
Across this spectrum of engagement in path cre-
ation, firms also moved at different temporal paces. At
GQ Contractors, for instance, there was an immediate,
early embrace of 3-D technology, some changes in their
work practices during construction (including the inven-
tion of new, patentable framing techniques), and later
changes in their structures and strategies. At Hoffman
Construction, we saw a strong commitment to 3-D tech-
nology at the very beginning of the Experience Music
Project, when they put CATIA™ stations in all subcon-
tractor offices and insisted that they learn and use 3-D.
At the end of the project, they were pleased to say:
“even the ditch diggers were using 3-D.” They subse-
quently created a new division dedicated to 3-D based
projects. Examples of the wakes of innovation that we
saw appearing at different paces in trading zones across
communities are summarized below in Table 1. Sim-
ilar to the example from the Lewis Building that we
presented in the introduction, many of the innovations
were conditioned by the use of 3-D technologies and
were related to other innovations during the project. For
instance, the new form of professional liability insur-
ance developed for the MIT Stata Center project was
adopted to encourage the free flow of information in
trading zones, by reducing the threat of litigation from
using 3-D representations; Hunt’s use of workstations
in their construction site trailer engaged all parties in a
more intensive sharing of knowledge; and Hunt’s cen-
tralized control of measurements offered transparency
and better understanding of each contractor’s work sta-
tus and interdependencies, reducing location errors and
rework.
Discussion
Throughout our field study we were struck by the stac-
cato spurts of innovation that followed Gehry Part-
ners’ use of 3-D technologies. Actors on his projects
were pursuing their own economic interests and were
641
not submitting to an altruistic common good. Their
push to innovate was shaped by their professional
identity, unique vocabularies, and craft-specific knowl-
edge, rather than by shared identity, common vocabu-
laries, and mutual understanding. Innovations in these
separate communities followed their own temporal logic
and structure rather than aligning with a coherent and
synchronized plan. Still, underneath this seemingly ran-
dom phenomenon, we found systemic and structural pat-
terns of interrelations among the innovations generated
by distinct actors.
Path-creating agency by one actor sets an innovation
trajectory for that firm. However, its trajectory can cross
those of other actors in an AEC project if specific con-
ditions for trading knowledge are present. Such encoun-
ters can become occasions for change in both actors’
paths, setting up multiple wakes of innovation, while
each actor continues traversing their own, but now newly
shaped, path. The primary example of path-creating
activity traversing communities in our study is the adop-
tion of digital 3-D representations by Gehry Partners.
This change opened a series of new trading zones for
innovations in tools, techniques, management, and gov-
ernance within Gehry Partners’ construction projects,
and reshaped the innovation trajectories of many project
actors. Furthermore, subsequent innovations by those
actors brought about changes in Gehry Partners’ own
use of 3-D tools, as well as their design and managerial
practices—making the innovation process reflexive and
chaotic. Just as multiple wakes create unpredictable pat-
terns of interactions when they collide with one another
on an otherwise placid surface, we found innovations
from different communities producing nonlinear patterns
of interactions.
Dynamics of Wakes of Innovation
Our research suggests that studying IT-induced innova-
tions in distributed systems is not only a question of why
and how a particular piece of technology is developed
and adopted by some users or populations. It is also a
question of identifying and accounting for a multiplicity
of innovations and their associated cognitive and mate-
rial processes as they unfold within and across diverse
communities. This characterization differs from the tra-
ditional attempts to explain the diffusion of innovations,
which have focused on understanding the adoption of
a single technology application like enterprise resource
planning systems, or computer-aided software engineer-
ing tools within an organization (Cooper and Zmud
1990, Fichman and Kemerer 1997, Orlikowski 1993),
or among homogeneous firms (Kauffman et al. 2000).
It also differs from the argument that garnering com-
plementary assets is necessary to innovate effectively
(Teece 1987). Although we agree that radical innova-
tions, like the use of digital 3-D representations in AEC,
will be accompanied by ancillary innovations across
 Boland, Lyytinen, and Yoo: Wakes of Innovation in Project Networks
642 Organization Science 18(4), pp. 631–647, © 2007 INFORMS

Table 1 Intercalated Innovations in Three Gehry Partners’ Projects

1. Hunt Construction, Indianapolis, Indiana. (Lewis Building)

(a) Hunt brought CATIA™ workstations into their construction trailer.
(b) Hunt later began using them as a representational tool for morning meetings of subcontractors.
(c) They expanded their scope of work to include providing "x! y ! z# location services for most contractors, who are usually
responsible for their own location measurements.
(d) They adopted the "x! y ! z# measurement system on other projects, bringing the survey work for all location measurements into their
construction management responsibilities.
2. A. Zahner and Co., Kansas City, Missouri. (Lewis Building; MIT Stata Center; Experience Music Project)
(a) For the EMP project, they transformed their fabrication facility for mass customization of metal panels, using 3-D software
to drive machinery.
(b) They invented a new self-draining steel shingle for the Lewis Building roof.
(c) They invented new fasteners to precisely assemble exterior wall panels before welding that were used in the MIT Stata Center.
(d) They invented a way to create double-curved surfaces at comparable cost to single-curved ones, thus freeing a major
design restriction for architects.
3. GQ Contractors of Cleveland, Ohio. (Lewis Building)
(a) They used 3-D workstations at Gehry Partners studio to prepare their shop drawings, but did not bring the technology into
their shop floor.
(b) They invented new, patentable framing techniques for interior walls with curving surfaces.
(c) They developed capabilities with new sound-deadening plaster materials that lead to a new line of specialty business.
(d) They redirected their business strategy toward high-end high-quality projects and expanded into consulting
services with other drywall firms.
4. The Cleveland Fire Inspection Office. (Lewis Building)
(a) They employed new techniques for modeling and evaluating smoke behavior in complex interior spaces.
(b) They presented their Lewis Building experience to their national training academy for teaching new fire inspection techniques.
5. DeSimone Structural Engineers, New York. (Lewis Building)
(a) They invented two new methods for framing structural steel.
(b) They won a national award from their profession for the most innovative structural engineering solution of the year.
6. Columbia Wire and Iron of Portland, Oregon. (Experience Music Project)
(a) They invented a new machine for making double bends in large steel beams, enabling construction of the Experience
Music Project.
(b) They have subsequently become the major source of exotically shaped steel components.
7. Hoffman Construction, Seattle. (Experience Music Project)
(a) They placed CATIA™ workstations in all subcontractors offices and expected their use on the project.
(b) In a subsequent project for the Seattle Central Library by the leading Dutch architect, Rem Koolhaas, they adopted
complimentary 3-D imaging technologies to digitally compare the design in the CATIA models with the “as built”
surfaces of the building, for fine-tuning of precise surface locations.
(c) They have now created a new construction management company to work solely on high-profile, 3-D based
projects with demanding structures and geometries.
8. MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts. (MIT Stata Center)
(a) The project team obtained a unique insurance policy for professional liability that put all actors on the project team under one
policy, thereby reducing incentives to search for a party to “blame” for errors.
(b) The university adopted a unique payment method that guaranteed contractors a funds disbursement within 24 hours of submitting
an approved invoice (as opposed to 45 days), thereby reducing the incentive to argue over small “change orders,” which could
delay payment by months.

communities, our analysis does not support the claim
that such assets can be reliably identified, garnered, and
mobilized, as economic analyses would suggest. IT inno-
vations involve a complex ensemble of tools, practices,
beliefs, commitments, and history (Kling and Scacchi
1982, Orlikowski and Iacono 2001). Our study shows
that innovations involving an IT ensemble are sporadic,
messy, rife with ambiguity, and situated in the local log-
ics and trajectories of each project participant.
We also found that the adoption of 3-D representa-
tions in Gehry Partners’ projects was a complex pro-
cess that connected diverse innovations from multiple
firms of each project network. The initial IT innovation
of adopting 3-D representations in Gehry’s practice was
subsequently shaped and reshaped by multiple, rever-
berating innovations in which new knowledge, technolo-
gies, and practices were constantly generated in newly
built and expanding trading zones. The resulting wakes
of innovation go beyond coercive, mimetic, and norma-
tive explanations of innovation found in institutional the-
ory (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). The firms in these
networks were not coerced by institutional legitimacy,
and they did not imitate one another by following others’
“best practices.”
Our study also portrays how uncertain the diffu-
sion of a complex and radical IT innovation can be.
Whereas the traditional model of diffusion of innova-
tion adopts an image of linear progression, with social
Boland, Lyytinen, and Yoo: Wakes of Innovation in Project Networks
Organization Science 18(4), pp. 631–647, © 2007 INFORMS
forces pulling and pushing innovations through popula-
tions of adopters (Zmud 1984), an image of wakes and
intersecting paths paints a different landscape. In this
landscape it is difficult to pinpoint who is pulling and
who is pushing. In one sense, we can argue for a cen-
tralized push, because nothing in this network moved
before the challenging designs of Frank O. Gehry were
embedded in 3-D representations. However, in another
sense, Frank Gehry is not the only highly creative archi-
tect designing buildings with challenging geometries.
Other architects could have played a similar innovator
role. In addition, we can see a decentralized and dis-
tributed pull as well, because Frank Gehry (or any other
architect) would not have been able to innovate with
such complex geometries without drawing on relevant
resources that became available outside their practice
(e.g., CATIA™ 3-D modeling from aerospace, Com-
puter Numerical Control–based fabrication technologies
from manufacturing, etc.), and enrolling networks of
actors willing to experiment across communities. This
landscape of innovation can be thought of as a set of
autonomous, vibrating nodes that create complex sets
of connections from relatively simple interactions taking
place in their trading zones (Van de Ven et al. 1999).
Instead of the project networks of AEC becoming more
homogenized from the “diffusion” of an innovation, we
see the landscape of innovations becoming more color-
ful and rugged as new actors join the network, with each
actor animated by its own unique character and voice at
their intersections.
Studies of single innovations within unique adopter
groups are useful in understanding implementation prob-
lems associated with a specific innovation. However,
in order to understand how IT innovations substan-
tially transform the practices and industrial organization
of distributed systems, they need to be amended with
“ecological” studies that trace intercalated innovations
across heterogeneous networks, such as the AEC. Such
an ecological approach to IT innovations is necessary
for studying the increasingly complex technologies that
rapidly digitize wider ranges of tools, activities, pro-
cesses, and places (Zuboff 1988). In this regard, we
need to examine the means by which innovations emerge
and are traded, the likelihood of transferring innovations
across boundaries, the structural properties of these com-
munities, and the way that their interrelationships affect
the pace, direction, and scope of innovation.
Our analysis shows a systemic process of innovation
in which an initial (path-dependent) condition of loosely
coupled, dynamic stability in the distributed system of
AEC project networks was disturbed. The convention-
alized use of 2-D boundary representations to support
a loose coupling with sufficient communication for the
distributed system to complete design and construction
projects became characterized by tighter coupling in
trading zones, as a subset of the communities searched
643
for new ways of working together on a different set of
tasks. The more porous boundaries and active trading
among communities spawned multiple wakes of inno-
vations along each community’s innovation trajectory,
spreading out from their projects. Whether this more
tightly coupled and communicatively intense arrange-
ment will persist, or will become newly conventionalized
around 3-D representations, remains to be seen.
Driving Forces of Wakes of Innovations
Our study suggests that the forces behind such processes
are a combination of design vision and mindfulness,
together with the dynamics generated in new trading
zones.
Design Vision and Mindfulness. Our interviewees
often referred to the criticality of a mindful creation
of the new that was shared at some level by all actors
involved in the network. They were mindful of others
and of the opportunities for invention that were open to
them in their interactions (Weick and Sutcliffe 2006).
For Gehry Partners, the source of mindfulness was the
architectural vision of Frank Gehry himself, which con-
tinually expands and creates new forms of architectural
language, exploring new materials, techniques, and tech-
nologies to fulfill his vision. There is an excitement in
being mindful in this way, which keeps the possibilities
for innovation open during the construction process:
" " " we always involve, we always break the problem
down, make sure the building works, what that means,
spend a massive amount of time on making it work before
there’s any form giving. People always think we have
some idea of what it’s gonna look at the end, and we
never do, they make sure we don’t. So, you know, it
is a process of not knowing where you’re going, you
know, you have a few basic things you do about the pro-
cess itself. Probably easier to show you at the office, but
they’re very minimal and beyond that, you’re reacting to
the people that you’re, the new client. So every project’s
new. (Jim Glymph, November 9, 2002)
The experience of the Fish project provided a glimpse
of how the managerial and work practices of an AEC
project could be accomplished in a more integrated way
by using 3-D technologies. It opened a vista of imagin-
ing and experimenting with radical, digital architecture,
and construction practices. As Gehry Partners has tra-
versed its own innovation path over the past decade, this
initial vision has become more concrete through experi-
ments in multiple construction projects that have helped
them garner an expansive suite of competencies.
We observed the contractors to be mindful of the
strategic question of how their firm could become a
leader or change agent in their craft. Many project par-
ticipants, from architects to engineers to craft work-
ers, share a path creation impetus and exercise mindful
control over their activities. They are, or can become,

644
intrigued by the possibilities of the new, and consistently
push to expand their expertise. This reflects a con-
scious desire to create something different and better
than what has gone before. Their innovation trajectories
were stimulated by the demands and opportunities of
high-profile projects and the state of development within
each firm. Sometimes they were more advanced in the
use of technologies, sometimes more collaborative in its
project organization, or sometimes more experimental
with materials and work practices.
Mindfulness, then, became a kind of propelling force
that kept innovation rippling out from each part of the
network—especially for those who progressed further
in the adoption of 3-D technologies. With a state of
mindfulness, everyone on the project had the potential
to become an innovator. One constructor commented on
this spirit as follows:
Because the format in which these documents was put
together on this job [it] did not complete the design, and
we found ourselves completing the design. So being that
this was a magnified case of that, now we’re paying more
attention to the design of the other jobs to see where
the architect left off so that we can address design issues
early on, because a big problem here was the incom-
plete design. The shape was there, we always knew the
shape, but we didn’t know how we were going to create it
because the documents didn’t fulfill all, they didn’t cover
all the problems. And that’s what they ran into in the
field, was that they had this set of documents that they
typically would use and it would tell them everything
where they didn’t have it. And so even the carpenters
in the field became part of the design, because they had
to figure out ways to do things " " " " Actually, they had
to help complete some of the design as far as structural
elements. (Ed Sellers, November 11, 2002, p. 13)
Trading Zones and Intercalated Innovations. Al-
though design vision and mindfulness provide psycho-
logical and cognitive explanations for the path-creating
innovations we observed, they do not provide a structural
explanation as to how such individual innovations came
together to form wakes of innovations. We found that
answer in the notions of trading zones and intercalation.
Different actors’ innovation paths were interwoven with
each other, and innovations from one community were
inserted into another’s innovation path, thus opening a
trading zone and changing the trajectory of both paths
(Galison 1997). In addition, certain innovations became
mutually dependent, providing a propelling force for
pushing the innovation forward. Without richer trading
zones generated by 3-D technologies, a path-creating
innovation would most likely have remained within its
originating community. Thus, it is not only the individ-
ual actors’ path-creating activities, but also the way they
interrelate through trading zones that creates wakes of
innovation.
It is also important to note the critical role played
by Gehry Partners’ explicit intention to use 3-D tools
Boland, Lyytinen, and Yoo: Wakes of Innovation in Project Networks
Organization Science 18(4), pp. 631–647, © 2007 INFORMS
as a medium for communication and coordination with
contractors, engineers, builders, and fabricators. Even
though many leading architects now use advanced 3-D
tools to generate detailed structural and surface models,
they rarely share these models with contractors and fab-
ricators “due to the concerns related to litigation, risk
sharing, or intellectual property rights” (Dale Stenning,
Hoffman Construction, December 16, 2003). As a result,
their use of 3-D tools, no matter how innovative it may
be internally, does not have second-order effects in gen-
erating spurts of innovation in the same way we saw in
Gehry Partners’ case.
Our study supports the position that IT innovation
does not take place through a single heroic innovator
or company (Swanson and Ramiller 1997). The fact
that Frank Gehry does not use computers and dislikes
their screen images shows that 3-D technology adoption
at Gehry Partners cannot be explained by his personal
needs or goals. However, Frank Gehry’s role in shaping
this innovation is critical because it is his architectural
vision and collaborative practices that challenge tradi-
tional ways of organizing project work and open trading
zones where actors can exchange ideas and invent meth-
ods for building. He has triggered a socially and tempo-
rally distributed transformation of artifacts (Tuomi 2002)
over a 10-year period and has reconfigured structural
relations across a diverse network of communities in the
AEC industries. Our study also shows how seemingly
separate innovations actually connect in time and space.
We did not observe an immediate and direct “balancing”
of such innovations within or across firms in the form of
instant “gestalt shift.” Instead, we saw the emergence
of pockets of productive communication within trading
zones, where communities who operated within different
innovation trajectories learned to negotiate, argue, invent
and thereby innovate.
Limitations
There are several limitations related to this study. Our
findings cannot be generalized across all innovation pro-
cesses in the construction industry, because we focused
on a leading and early innovator with radically new IT
capabilities. First, such early innovators operate in high-
end markets that can attract unique resource pools (in
terms of architectural, engineering, and IT talent), and
can invest in technology trials and design assist con-
tracts. Second, our study reports on innovation in a lux-
ury market by a “super star.” It is not clear how fast
and under what conditions such innovations could be
adopted by other parts of the high-end building mar-
ket, or in other market segments in the AEC industry.
This would require a better understanding of both cost
and demand factors related to different types of building
projects, and of how the intensive use of 3-D representa-
tions can reduce cost across the value chain in different
Boland, Lyytinen, and Yoo: Wakes of Innovation in Project Networks
Organization Science 18(4), pp. 631–647, © 2007 INFORMS
pockets of the industry. Finally, our study focuses on
AEC, which is a distributed industry made up of many
independent subtrades, each with their own unique com-
puting and information practices. The pattern of innova-
tions we observed in our study may be quite different
from the patterns of innovation diffusion in more con-
centrated and centralized industries with a few dominant
firms.
Directions for Future Research
Our findings suggest several avenues for future research.
A first research question is when and how do 3-D tech-
nologies or other novel representations constitute effec-
tive boundary objects in trading zones (Henderson 1991,
Star and Griesemer 1989). In particular, we wonder how
Gehry Partners’ representational practices differ from
those of other highly accomplished architects who do not
use digital 3-D representations, or use them differently
to influence innovation and learning.
Second, 3-D modeling tools are just one of many
information technologies that mediate the coordination
and communication in distributed systems. It would
be interesting to investigate the generative capabilities
of a broad range of digital information technologies,
including RFID, product-lifecycle tools, or scientific col-
laborations for enabling wakes of innovation in other
distributed networks.
Third, our study suggests the opportunity for using
other methods in examining wakes of innovations in dis-
tributed systems. In particular, we anticipate that future
analyses of wakes of innovation could use formal and
dynamic approaches such as multimodal network analy-
sis or simulation, which would allow the examination of
different patterns of innovation between heterogeneous
communities (Monge and Contractor 2003).
Finally, the processes of path creation and interca-
lated innovations should be generalized and validated
in other industries where IT innovation forms a central
locus for triggering business transformation. Increasing
digitization of products and business processes allows
for innovations at boundaries by linking heterogeneous
communities in networks. These innovations can cross
the boundaries of multiple communities, and therefore
the network perspective followed in our study can be
helpful. Such studies could help identify organizational
conditions and processes for generating wakes of inno-
vation. For example, mobile multimedia, biotechnology
or advanced logistic systems can offer interesting fields
to examine.
Conclusion
We hope to stimulate a shift in thinking about diffu-
sion of IT-induced innovation in networked contexts.
We want to augment the individual and firm-centric
perspectives on innovation that focus on the diffusion
645
of a single wake of innovation, with a network-centric
perspective that emphasizes multiple, diverse wakes of
innovation emerging in a sporadic and nonlinear way
from trading zones in organizational networks. The out-
come of such wakes is not a uniform world full of
like-minded actors and averages. Instead, it is a vibrant
and interesting world, filled with distinctive colors and
voices, producing everchanging combinations of patterns
of technologies, routines, and cognition.
Acknowledgments
The authors are indebted to the senior editor and the reviewers
for their very helpful suggestions and patient guidance of this
manuscript.
Endnotes
1
We interviewed members of the following organizations,
among others: Gehry Partners (Los Angeles), Hunt Construc-
tion Company (Indianapolis), Hoffman Construction Com-
pany (Seattle), A. Zahner Company (Kansas City), Mariani
Steel Fabricators (Toronto), Cleveland Fire Prevention Bureau,
Cleveland Building Department, Desimone Engineering (New
York), Donnelly Concrete (Cleveland), Spark Steel (Toronto),
Columbia Wire and Iron (Portland), GQ Contractors (Cleve-
land), Skanska Construction, USA (Boston), Coop Him-
melblau Architects (Vienna), Etalliers Jean Nouvel (Paris),
Westbrook Architects (Cleveland), and Magnusson Klemencic
Associates (Seattle).
2
With complex buildings like Frank Gehry’s, this increases
exponentially the volume and complexity of measurements.
For example, in the Peter B. Lewis building the amount of
measures was close to 500,000 points, which were all managed
centrally in a separate (Excel) data base.
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