Code Mapping for Designers

The nature of a design solution is related to how a problem is perceived, defined and articulated.

The Design Process requires the collection of as much critical and relevant data and information as possible concerning any particular design problem and from this information you can begin to formulate your intentions and ideas. The more information and knowledge you have gathered of the design issues and parameters, the greater the potential for a fluid, efficient and realizable project.

I am presently in the process of developing 'Code Mapping for Designers', which is intended to help guide you through the complex and confusing IBC. This mapping is from a designer's point of view and will help you account for and integrate applicable regulations in a timely fluid manner which is directly related to the design process. The mapping  organizes the basic required codes into an accessible list with section references that will support and strengthen your designs.

Knowledge of the applicable codes will affect your early intentions, ideas, concepts  and design decisions. It is imperative for you to integrate these basic regulations into your design thinking strategies so that your creativity is grounded in the applicable regulations and requirements, which will then allow your creativity to flourish without major design flaws showing themselves later in the design process, causing you to make major design adjustments or possibly worse.

Account for regulations

Interpret application

Accommodate within schematic

Integrate into design

"Codes act as boundaries for design options that can be considered. Therefore, full awareness of all codes is a crucial foundational element to solid design decisions for any client."

Botti-Salitsky, pg. 124, Programming and Research

Your  design is required to respond to, integrate and fulfill all applicable codes and regulations governing the project. The regulations are absolutes unless you can prove them otherwise. They have been developed by experts in the field through research and evidence and are there to protect the public's life safety, health and welfare. We need to think of these regulations as working for us and not against our creativity. To adjust our thinking that they are there to serve our creative thinking,

just like gravity, heat, wind, rain, etc.

Think of these regulations as a process of:
 assembling 
layering 
interlocking 
& 
penetrating

Codes is one of the twelve factors in the Datum Line Equation.

I will be offering 'Code Mapping for Designers' on-line soon.