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WHY CODE? “Order is heaven's
first law.” (Shaker saying) “The term "code" derives from "codex",
derived in turn from "caudex", which
was simultaneously the trunk of a tree, a slab of wood, and a set of
laws. It is one of several the terms
clustering around the idea of a god's power being resident in a sacred
tree; or the "Roland Oak" at the center of the traditional Anglo-Saxon
village. A code, then, is etymologically and functionally the trunk around
which a settlement arranges itself.” “Understood that way, a
code is actually an art form; it is the choreography of human
settlement.” (Pat Pinnell) “The life of the law has not been logic; it has been
experience.” (Oliver Wendell Holmes) “It is absurd to leave corrective measures in the hands of those responsible for the problem in the first place.” (Lewis Mumford)
Within the past half-century, some 30 million buildings have
degraded cities and destroyed landscapes.
Must we tolerate this comprehensive disaster in exchange for the
(perhaps) three thousand masterpieces that architects have produced? This
dismal win-loss ratio in architecture should be as unacceptable to society
as it would be in any other field. We have been called to improve this
situation and have discovered that codes are the most powerful tools
available to affect the outcome. We must code because the default setting in contemporary design is
mediocrity and worse. Those who object to codes imagine that they constrain
masterpieces (their own, usually). But masterpieces are few; the more
likely outcome is kitsch. Codes can assure a minimum level of competence,
even if in so doing they must constrain certain extreme possibilities. We must code so that the various professions that affect urbanism
can act with unity of purpose. Without integrated codes, architects design
buildings that ignore the streets of the civil engineer,
landscape architects ignore both the roads and the buildings. The result is
an unassembled collection of urban potential. We must code because, if we do not, buildings are shaped by fire
marshals, civil engineers, poverty advocates, market experts, the
accessibility police, materials suppliers and liability attorneys. Codes
written by architects clear a field of action for architectural concerns. We must code because those who are now charged with designing,
supervising and building tend to avoid education, and exhortation; but they
will, however, willingly administer whatever codes are in hand. This has a
potential to carry reform greater than education. We code because ours is a nation of laws. Designers should prefer to
work within known rules rather than be subject to the opinion of individual
boards, politicians and bureaucrats. We code because codes already exist. Replacing them with a void is
legally unsustainable. Bureaucracies cannot be (have never been)
dismantled. It is for us to reconceive the codes
so that they result in better places to live. We code because unguided towns and cities tend, not to vitality, but
to socioeconomic monocultures. The wealthy gather in their enclaves, the
middle-class in their neighborhoods, and the poor get the residue. This
process occurs ineluctably in traditional cities, no less than in new
suburban sprawl. Codes can secure that measure of diversity without which
urbanism withers and dies. We make use of codes as the means to distribute building design to
others. Authentic urbanism requires the intervention of the many in a
sequential manner. Those who would design all the buildings produce only
architectural projects – monocultures of design – they are not
involved in urbanism. We must code so that buildings by disparate architects cooperate
towards the creation of a spatially defined public realm. This no longer
occurs as a matter of course. The demands of parking, no less than the
arbitrary singularity of architects, tend to create vague, sociofugal places. Geographies of nowhere undermine the
possibility of community. We must code so that private buildings achieve a modicum of
coherence; otherwise there would be no urban fabric. By code, we protect
the prerogative of civic buildings to express the aspirations of the
institutions they accommodate and also the inspiration of their architects.
This is the dialectic or urbanism. We must code in order to protect the diversity of urbanism.
Otherwise, wary neighbors tend to reject mixed uses when in proximity to
their dwellings. We code to protect the character of a locale against the
universalizing tendencies of modern real estate development. Codes apply
general principles to specific places. We must code in order to assure that urban places can be truly urban
and that rural places remain truly rural, and that there be a specific
transect in between. Otherwise, misconceived environmentalism tends to the
partial greening of all places; the result being neither one nor the other,
but the monstrous garden city of sprawl. We code because the geography of urban and rural character is of a
fundamental importance that cannot be left to the vicissitudes of
ownership. Codes require the preparation of maps that address the
"where" no less than the “what”. We must code so that buildings incorporate a higher degree of
environmental response than is otherwise called for by economic analysis. We must code so buildings are built to be both durable and mutable
in proper measure. Such things are crucial to the longevity required of
urbanism. Without codes urban municipalities tend to suffer from
disinvestment. The competing private
codes of the homeowners associations, the guidelines of office parks, and
the rules of shopping centers create predictable outcomes that lure
investment away from older cities and towns. Codes level the playing field
for the inevitable competition. We must also prepare the private association codes of developers,
because it is they who have built our cities and more than ever continue to
do so. The profit motive, was capable of building
the best places that we still have. Codes can assist in the restoration of
this standard. We code in defiance of an architectural culture that incapacitates
architects by presenting only the extremes of unfettered genius and
servility to the zeitgeist. We have discovered that there are positions
between. We refuse to be powerless, and we accept the responsibility of
action. We code because we are not relativists. We observe that there are
urbanisms that allow for a self-defined pursuit of happiness (the stated
right of Americans). We also observe there are other urbanisms that tend to
undermine that pursuit. Through codes we attempt to make choice a reality. We design codes because it is the most abstract, rigorous and
intellectually refined practice available to a designer. But it is also
verifiable: by being projected into the world, the codes engage a reality
that can lead to resounding defeat. In comparison, theoretical writing is a
delicacy that can survive only under the protection of the academy. We code because codes can compensate for deficient professional
training. We will continue to code, so long as the schools continue to
educate architects towards self-expression rather than towards context, to
theory rather than practice, towards the individual building rather than to
urbanism. We look forward to the day when we will no longer have to code. Codes are an emergency measure. While coding, we must also work to restore the underlying condition in which the common good is the organic, attainable ideal for those who build. |
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