Name: Building Bad, Part 1: How Architectural Utility is Constrained by Politics
Author: Jonathan Ochshorn

Course Info

8 video lessons (57 Mins)
Published
2023
4.37

Preview Course

Browse Course Chapters

1.

Introduction

2 mins
2.

Health, Safety, and Welfare: Concepts and Principles

7 mins
3.

Fire Safety: Home Sprinkler Mandates

7 mins
4.

Structure: Economic and Political Calculations

9 mins
5.

Accessibility: Political Compromises in the ADA

8 mins
6.

Light and Air: From 19th Century Reforms to Windowless Dorms

10 mins
7.

Sustainability: How Politics and Economics is Embedded in the LEED Rating System

11 mins
8.

Conclusion

1 min

What You Will Learn

Describe how legislation to promote health, safety, and welfare is subjected to, and constrained by, cost-benefit analysis.
Explain why most states have adopted model building codes without the home fire sprinkler mandate.
Explain why it is not possible to absolutely preclude structural failure.
Explain how enforcement of ADA guidelines through injunctive relief limits the Act's effectiveness.
Explain how profitability considerations are embedded in the LEED rating system.
Describe the historic trajectory of code requirements for lighting and ventilation in residential buildings.

Course Description

Part One of “Building Bad” offers an examination of why and how boundaries that constrain the utilitarian functions of buildings are established. In this course, you’ll learn how building codes and safety regulations are limited by cost-benefit analyses; how profitability is a key component of LEED sustainability ratings; and why, decades after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, many U.S. streets and buildings remain inaccessible.

Part Two of the Building Bad series explains how dysfunctional forms of expression, competition between designers and architects, and the drive to innovate create poor design outcomes and limit the utility of buildings.