How about that code!

Archive of Older Topics Archive - Specifications Discussions
1

Forgive me for going a little off the beaten path, but Colin “made me do it”!

Following link is to an AIA effort for establishing a college level course on building codes. This contains a synopsis of such a course.

The idea is to provide academic instruction so the emerging professionals know 1] what a code is, 2] what they look like and why they exist, and 3] a little of how they work and you work in them.

We [the subcommittee] project this for schools of architecture and engineering-- colleges, community colleges, technical institues,etc., etc.
AND we project it as a vehicle for code folks, too. There is some interest in this,and we ask your assistance in spreading the word whenever you have the opporunity

And our sincere thanks!!

The full committee report, and the synopsis are available on the AIAs Building Performance Knowledge Community internet site at

www.aia.org/SiteObjects/files/final%20codes%20report1.pdf
or
http://www.aia.org/bp_default&grandCh=yes [see yellow text box on the right side of the page- click on “Read On” ]

2

Now if the architectural schools would only introduce courses on specifications, how to detail a building, how to put together a set of drawings, and construction administration - they might actually start graduating folks with an architectural education!

Maybe someday . . .

3

Then we can count on you when we run the coup?

4

Absolutely!

5

The last dean of the local architecture school did identify why the graduates are “unqualified.” The “professioinals” - those working in the field abandoned the education process to the “educators.”

6

Unfortunately, Robert, I think you are correct, in large measure. I also think that this has led to the current suspicious nature of the IDP. There is a need for the schools to ratchet up some “real-world”,practice related instruction, AND for the offices to be more responsible for continuing some aspects of education. Frankly, I have seen and participated in some amazing educational sessions, in the office, during lunch hour-- real substantive and helpful instruction to assist the younger staff, particularly in practice and technical topics.
Also, you can read of the “thrist” for more information and founding on the part of interns by looking at the intern essay competition run by www.archvoices.org

7

I’m not so sure I would agree with Robert. When I was in college (back in the 70’s, I think) all but one member of the faculty were practicing architects. Many were principals in local firms. And yet, there was very little emphasis on code requirements or other practical considerations. I can’t recall anyone being graded down for not having enough exits or exceeding allowable areas, etc. The main concern was with developing a process of design and coming up with buildings that looked really cool. And woe betide the hapless student that used green plastic trees (from a model railroad set) as part of a model! Some of my present colleagues refer to this as the “capes and berets syndrome”. Maybe it’s a case of “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

8

I say you get your real-world knowledge out in the real world. The educators at my alma mater are welcome to keep on concentrating on design and theory, so far as I see it. I managed to pass the ARE two years out of school, so I figure I got enough technical and practice education somewhere.

9

In the US, we have a system to prepare architects that includes formal education in the academy and informal education in practice. Practitioners need to belly up to the bar and recognize that they must share in the education of young architects. I know of offices that refuse to hire recent graduates because the cost of training is too high. Well, guess what, we have a system that recognizes one is not ready to practice architecture until one has gained a relatively broad exposure to professional practice. Maybe we do need “teaching practices,” much like “teaching hospitals,” that are recognized and accredited as such.

On the other hand, many academies do not recognize their role in preparing their students to enter professional practice at the level of interns. This should, in my view, include an exposure to building code issues (including accessibility), construction materials and technology, construction contracts and specifications, basic structural, mechancial, electrical, and plumbing systems, and fundamentals of detailing and organizing construction documents. How much of an introduction? Consider that a typical 5-year program may include 150 sememster hours of course work. In a 3-credit course, the student (along with 20 to 50 others) has contact with the instructor for about 40 to 45 hours during the semester. The student should spend 3 hours of preparation for each contact hour (yeah, right!) so that would be 160 to 180 hours over a 4 month period on a given subject; OK, so they only spend maybe 100 hours. A typical architectural curriculum may include 40 to 60 credits of design studio and another 30 to 40 credits of university core. This leaves 15 to 25 semester courses to fill up will everything a student needs to know to be productive when they get their first job. Take out some courses for “history and theory” (not fewer than 2, maybe as many as 5) and some for drawing and computers (3 to 5), and you are left with very few “openings” in which to teach more than many programs are teaching right now.

An intern working in an office will spend 160 hours in a standard month at that job. In performing a code review for a moderately complex project (and it doesn’t take much to make a project complex) under the supervision of a capable design professional over a 2 to 3 week period, the intern may very well gain a much better understanding of “the code” and the design issues affected by the code than they would have addressing a similar problem in class 3 hours a week.

Why aren’t more practicing professionals teaching? Ask them about academic responsibilities and tenure. Shouldn’t an architect who designs 3 buildings a year be recognized as “publishing” something? NAAB should, in my view, get serious with architectural programs about requiring a certain percentage of practicing professionals on the faculty and perhaps a percentage of tenured faculty. This does assume that there are practicing professionals can teach; I have known of a number of highly qualified architects who were unable to teach their way out of the proverbial paper bag. On the other hand, it is difficult for an academic who has never wrestled with integrating a building system into a particular aesthetic vision to communicate an appreciation for how difficult that can be.

Yes, we need the academy to introduce students to the code; no, they are not ready to perform any thing other than a very basic code analysis when they graduate. That’s why they are interns!

10

I deeply appreciate all of the conversation generated here. But the AIA voluntarily asked for a subcommittee to formulate the report and course synopsis-- in fact, they wanted a 2-semester course [which the profs on the committee “deep-sixed” quickly due to obvious time constraints.

The code situation will become better when such a course is introduced, not necessarily “emphaiszed”, but as an orientation. From my experience as a code official, the animosity between many architects and code officials lies in the lack of the architects’ understanding of, and respect for why the codes exist, what they are [law!], and the fact that DO NOT inhibit design. Ignoring the code, and trying to justify a non-compliant desing is pure folly. The current practicitioners, in large numbers, hold to the old worn, “the code is an intrusion” line, which is patently false, and an excuse used when proper programming including the regulations is not done. If we can get the youngseters to at least know about a code is, and know how to negotiate it, and incorporate it as “normal” procedure in their future projects-- we will be much, much better.

For all too long, the offices in large part have chosen not to be “teaching entities”-- this in part has led to the degradation of the IDP, and the continuation of bad attitudes in reagrd to the code. When in fact, all architects are required to practice LEGALLY, which I think means to meets all applicable laws [like the code!]

Everything said above is true, but I subscribe to only a portion of it [as does each writer]. All I can offer is that there is a vehicle by which we can make our profession better, by stocking it with more informed young professionals. That will produce a better day and scenario, in all aspects for all involved!

To resurrect some old saws-- Try it; you’ll like it! Pay me now, or pay me later!

11

I agree. Architecture is more than just aesthetics, and not every architecture student will be a star designer. Why force students down a path for which they have limited aptitude? I struggled through design studio, but excelled in structures, materials, and building systems. I would have been the first one in line to register for the code course.

Medical students aren’t all trained to be surgeons, and those that fail at it become general practitioners, pediatricians, or podiatrists.

For those who have an interest in the technical aspects of architecture, they should be given the opportunity to learn as much as possible before stepping through the door into the “real world.”

12

I must take issue with the limitation of design statement above.

The continuing decrease in the spacing of openings in a handrail IS A LIMITATION ON DESIGN.
Is it wrong? Perhaps not, but it IS a limitation.

When the 4 inch spacing came out for the first time, it created ladders for two-year olds. Was this in the public interest? Maybe. Did it limit design? I’d say yes.

As an architect that is much better at the technical aspects of the craft than the design aspects, I wish I had had MORE and BETTER design teachers. I’ll never be great at design but I wish I were better. School should stretch you in the places your weakest. Does formal education need more pragmatic - technical driven classes? I’d say; Yes, some. Perhaps if during DESIGN class the grades were given out for architecture instead of sculpture we’d all fair better.
Remember M.P. Vitruvius said; “It’s got to stand up, look good, AND be useful” (It sounds a little different in Latin. :wink:

13

Although I don’t mean to start an argument, I do completely disagree that animosity between architects and code officials is because architects don’t respect the code or understand the reasons for it. Architects are a very diverse group of people. Many of them help write the codes. Many of them are the code experts in their companies. They can’t reasonably be lumped into a generalization like that.

I myself study each code very carefully and try my best to follow it. I don’t know the code as well as the code officials, given that they spend all day, every day in one code, while I have a different code to work with on each project. In my last 5 major projects I’ve worked under the 97 SBC, 99 BOCA, 01 Florida, 00 IBC and 03 IBC and am now working with the 04 Florida draft not yet adopted but still being applied. Also in effect were Texas, Florida and Georgia accessibility codes and of course the ADAAG.

Any code official who generalizes architects as having less than the appropriate level of respect or understanding is himself probably the root of the animosity and is misjudging the size of the task it is for an architect to get up to the code official’s level of understanding of any one code.

14

Mr. Hauk, I do apologize for the gross generality about architects and codes. But during my tenure as code official, I was amazed at the effort put forth to obviate the code, the lack of understanding, and the animosity shown for codes and their adminstrators on the part of all too many architects, engineers, fire service personnel and of course, contractors/builders.

Granted there were many, many who were the exact opposite, but then one tends to remember only the very good-- and the very bad.Things were getting better as I left my position, but still there was a long way to go. For years, no AIA personnel attended code change hearings, and made no input to the provisions [that, too have begun to change, particularly sine the IBC has been published]. The fire service was the main contributor for many years

Obviously each person comes to her or his own determination, but I would maintain that, as an AIA official observed a few years ago-- “architects find the codes to be a dull business”.

15

As an interesting diversion from this thread, I went to the Cornell School of Architecture website and searched the course descriptions of their 160+ courses with the word “code.” No results.

“Specifications” yielded 1 result; “construction” yielded 5.

Cornell has been voted the leading architecture school in the US for at least the past 5 years.

16

Maybe a solution is for schools of architecture heavy on design to start offering a technical/professional/management curriculum…sort of like a degree path of its own, in the same Bachelor of Architecture program. It seems like the art form of architecture should be allowed to be nurtured without too much distraction for those who are talented at that side of it. After all, architecture at Cornell isn’t exactly CAD school. Most university degrees don’t really train its students for a specific job skill…and maybe that’s the way it should be.

17

I suspect that the schools would respond by pointing out that their students want to “draw.” Few people enter architectural study with a passion for the other side of practice, and schools have to respond to their market. Perhaps the best they can do is a respectful introduction to the technical/professional/management side of the practice, which some accomplish.

BTW, a wonderfully talented friend from my college days is on the Cornell staff, and I only pick on Cornell because it is held in such high regard by the profession and because they have a search engine on their site that’s easy to use.

18

It is too bad that the schools of architecture have to play to their market. Too bad too that most architectural curricula are accumulations of pet peeves from faculty, many of who, quite often, have never practiced or put a building together.

Even in the Cornell scheme of courses, there are several electives any one of which could be replaced by a building code courseindeed, why not Professional Practice 3. Then too, why not practice instruction throughout the entire academic sequence since there is a lot of ground to cover, if only in a mere "scratching of the surface formats. Why specifications and writing could even be worked in.

I believe that students coming into these programs expect the everything-youwant-t- know-about architecture, and are coming up short. This obviously is an opportunity or drastic need for the profession, as a whole to address the curriculum content in ALL schools, and assist in more uniform coverage. Dont mean to impinge on the style of marketing, but aiming to produce a better, more poignant and more uniform result across all schools.

If the states and NCARB continue to provide for registered architects with no added specialty suffix, then we need to have a broad base, full-coverage academic program in every school. Doctors are first MDs, then become surgeons, ob-gyns, pediatricians, etc. If that is the type of determination for architecture, then maybe the Masters programs should be realigned to become the added specialty education.

Before taking a narrower route in practice, every graduate architect should have the same basic, uniform understanding of the profession, and knowledge of the work as any other colleague. Every element and organziation of the profession needs to collectively address this issue, and come to consensus among all.

Marketing of the schools should be reduced to other criteria than currently used.