Large-scale construction projects are also notorious for delays and cost overruns, so I wouldn't make too much of that.
Even granting your point, though, that doesn't tell us much about software. Nobody expects to start a building as a small house and work it up to something the size of the Pentagon. You can't automatically replace every screw in a building in minutes. Buildings aren't made out of words, and they don't have requirements that change continuously. Buildings aren't expected to respond quickly to competitor's new amenities. The construction of buildings is not 100% automatable with modern technology. So I wouldn't be too hasty in suggesting that the Waterfall approach is made more plausible by a similar-sounding process being used in an entirely different industry.
And honestly, real buildings aren't even much like what you're imagining. Stewart Brand's book "How Buildings Learn" examines actual buildings and how they adapt and change in ways very different than what people with GANTT charts think should happen.
Even granting your point, though, that doesn't tell us much about software. Nobody expects to start a building as a small house and work it up to something the size of the Pentagon. You can't automatically replace every screw in a building in minutes. Buildings aren't made out of words, and they don't have requirements that change continuously. Buildings aren't expected to respond quickly to competitor's new amenities. The construction of buildings is not 100% automatable with modern technology. So I wouldn't be too hasty in suggesting that the Waterfall approach is made more plausible by a similar-sounding process being used in an entirely different industry.
And honestly, real buildings aren't even much like what you're imagining. Stewart Brand's book "How Buildings Learn" examines actual buildings and how they adapt and change in ways very different than what people with GANTT charts think should happen.