The all-glass space would have introduced views and sunlight to interior offices and the elevator core and created an appealing entry. But the atrium could not be built, according to local code officials, unless the architects installed fire-rated glazing, doors, and walls at the entries to the elevator banks. The changes would have upped the cost of the building and negated the benefits of the glass atrium. Still nice, but nowhere near the same effect, says Avram Lothan, AIA, of DeStefano and Partners, who designed the building. Architects are regularly asked to redesign, reengineer, or add expensive and often extreme health and safety features to a building in order to make it pass code.
Restrictions just get tighter and tighter, never more lax.
They seem to pervade every aspect of the building. It s as if design freedom were slowly being choked off, Lothan says. Bob Fowler, FAIA, acting director of planning and permitting in Pasadena, California, agrees. The codes are written from the enforcer s standpoint in a fashion that is not friendly to architects, he says. They are complicated documents that are intended to restrict what architects can do.