Architectural Design and Regulation
By: Rob Imrie and Emma Street
Contributors: Street, Emma, author
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Chichester, West Sussex, UK; Ames, Iowa, USA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 349
ISBN-13: 9781405179669
Copyright date: 2011
Subjects: ARCHITECTURE / Design, Drafting, Drawing & Presentation; Building laws; Architects; Legal status, laws
Description: "Regulations and associated governance practices, relating to the design of the built environment are an integral part of the design process and warrant serious attention by scholars of urban design. The regulations that condition the building process are neither ephemeral nor insignificant yet they have barely been the subject of academic investigation.  Governments are placing increasing emphasis on design codes, building regulations, and planning statements to guide the conduct of architects, and to fashion much more of the design process but there has been little research on what architects feel and think about this, and how it is affecting what they do and their daily patterns of work.  The book offers insights into a number of important relationships: the impact of regulations on architects and their designs; the use of regulations to create or sustain shared bodies of knowledge and common understanding between different actors (i.e. designers, contractors, regulators); and, the social issues of how risk is shared (between designers and the state) for creating and ascertaining that the minimum (design) conditions are satisfied.  The book develops two lines argument:  1. Regulation is core to architects' practices, and, in turn, such practices define, in part, the scope and possibilities of regulation. If one accepts this proposition, it seems incumbent on research to centre the understanding of architects' practices within the broadcloth of the rules and regulations that, in turn, are part of the broader contexts within which architecture unfolds.  2. While conceptions of design may preclude explicit incorporation of regulations and building standards, such standards do influence, in variable ways, aesthetic and/or design outcomes. Regulations ought to be conceived of as much more than technical instruments, or part of a non-creative process somehow removed from architects' practices"--

"Regulations and associated governance practices, relating to the design of the built environment are an integral part of the design process and warrant serious attention by scholars of urban design. The regulations that condition the building process are neither ephemeral nor insignificant yet they have barely been the subject of academic investigation. Governments are placing increasing emphasis on design codes, building regulations, and planning statements to guide the conduct of architects, and to fashion much more of the design process but there has been little research on what architects feel and think about this, and how it is affecting what they do and their daily patterns of work. The book offers insights into a number of important relationships: the impact of regulations on architects and their designs; the use of regulations to create or sustain shared bodies of knowledge and common understanding between different actors (i.e. designers, contractors, regulators); and, the social issues of how risk is shared (between designers and the state) for creating and ascertaining that the minimum (design) conditions are satisfied"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 309-334) and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Part 1: The context of regulation.The first part of the book outlines the role and significance of codes and regulations relating to the design of the built environment. It provides historical and contextual discussion of what codes and regulations are, and how and why they have emerged to regulate design and building processes. It outlines the institutional and/or governance structures in and through which codes and regulations have emerged. It develops key concepts relating to risk as a way of understanding the role and significance of regulation and the design process.Chapter 1: The significance of regulation.Chapter 2: Regulation and the design process.Chapter 3: Standards and the regulation of architecture..Part 2: The practices of regulation.This part of the book explores how design and/or building standards and regulations influence architects' practices, and with what implications for the form and content of the built environment. It refers to the empirical data gathered as part of an Arts and Humanities Research Council project. As already outlined, this included scoping interviews with urban design professionals, a postal survey of 800 UK architects, follow up depth interviews, ethnography research in two architectural practices, cases studies of design codes, interviews with other development professionals, and collection of documents and photographs. Interviews with urban design professionals and architects were also conducted in the USA, and this material is drawn on in the following chapters to develop points of contrast with the UK.Chapter 4: Learning about regulation.Case study: The teaching of regulation in architectural school.Chapter 5: Working with regulation.Case study: The shaping of regulation and design outcomes.Chapter 6: The influence of regulation on architecture.Case study: Regulation and straw bale building techniques in the United States..Part 3: The scope of regulation.This part of the book widens the understanding of the regulation of architecture to encompass the roles of specific aspects of the design process relating to specification, procurement, and design codes. Rules and regulations relating to design are broader than planning and building control, and most architects argue that design outcomes are not unrelated to contractual relations with other actors.Chapter 7: Risky behaviour: specification, procurement, and regulation.Case study: procuring the London Olympics.Chapter 8: The coding of design and architecture.Case study: The influence of design codes on architects' practices.Chapter 9: The interrelationships between regulation and architects' practices.