Questioning Architectural Judgment The Problem of Codes in the United States [Paperback]

The book shines light on the problem of judgment, particularly in the realm of architectural technics and the codes that regulate it. The struggle to define sustainability, and thus judge architecture through such lenses, is but one dimension of the contemporary problem of judgment. By providing the reader with an inherently interdisciplinary study of a particular disciplinearchitecture, it brings to the topic lenses that challenge the too frequently unexamined assumptions of the discipline. By situating architecture within a broader cultural field and using case studies to dissect the issues discussed, the book emphasizes that it is not simply a matter of designing better, more efficient, or more stringent codes to guide place-making, but a matter of reconstructing the boundaries of the systems to be coded. The authors are winners of the EDRA Place-Research Award 2014 for their work on the Green Alley Demonstration Project used in the book.

Acknowledgements  General Introduction: Questioning Knowledge and Judgment in Architecture  Part 1: Art, Technology and Professionalism  Introduction  1. Maintaining Frames: Architecture-as-Art  2. Switching Frames: Architecture-as-Technology  3. Standardization, Justice and the Built Environment  Part 2: A Taxonomy of Codes  Introduction  4. Frame Analysis as a Practical Tool  5. Tacit Codes in traditional and Modern Building Cultures  6. Sumptuary Codes, Taste, and Distinction in the Built World  7. Economic Codes and the Civic Economy  Part 3: Sociotechnical Codes as Both Index and Tool of Change  Introduction  8. Social Groups, Technological Frames, and Focal Events  9. Coding Disability: A Case Study of Frame Integration&nbslãD