DES/EX: The Architectural Services Futures Market

DES/EX, Want to buy Rem Koolhas futures like corn and hogbellies? Websurf into the Design Futures Exchange<br />
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The first thing to develop on DES/EX will be a simple labor market. Say your firm needs 2000 hours of CADD work on a new olympic stadium you are designing that must be occupied by spring 1999. Your firm could post a call on DES/EX for this work, to be delivered within this time line, and see who bids for the work. Enterprising architecture students in Rio offer to do it for $4.80 an hour; another bid from Bangladesh comes in at $4.70; another from Iceland for $5.10. The highest bid is from the Eugene Architectural Collective at $15.00. Who is kidding whom? Guess who gets the work?