Was my design ripped off?
Have you ever designed something that you put your heart and soul into and later found out someone was taking credit for your hard work? This is common place in the architecture and design fields where citing sources is seldom practised. Unlike most other scholastic fields that must follow strict ethical principles of citing sources (bibliographies and such) the design fields follow a more informal approach where there are few rules as to piracy and theft of design from other designers. Why is this? Well... so much of the architecture and design fields function off of a daily rip off of others ideas during the design phase, it is part of the lifestyle of designing. A designer is constantly seeing others ideas in magazines, coffee table books, etc, etc. The designer may not even be aware that he/she is pirating an idea, for this visualization is often internal, or that their new contribution to the idea/design makes it different or unique. So this sort of thing is really part of what it is to be a designer or architect.
However, mischief and deviousness begins to occur when a designer knowingly takes full credit of a design when another designer was active in the same project they they built upon without citing that designer. When this sort of lack of respect and ethos occurs it turns the world of design into yet another world of abuse and scandal opening up a can of worms. Once a designer has been violated in this fashion he/she becomes cynical, and guarded. It is at this point where they often become secretive, bound by legal contracts. The openness of the design world as an art form loses the transparency, the collaborative process and trust that once made it a unique and wonderful field.
Perhaps some of the most savage purveyors of such mischief are the egotist architects/designers who believe that it is not necessary to acknowledge those who actually build their projects(elitists). Sure their concepts give rise to a product, but it is the craftsman, the everyday labor that goes into the building that makes that project come to reality. It is with this sort of disrespect that makes individuals guarded, jaded, and disconnected. I have witnessed this sort of separation in the world of design and construction. It divides the builder from the architect/designer and in the long run creates dysfunctional relationship.
In the end we work should work together on projects. The project is only as good as its weakest link, it is through respect of the collaborative process and the individual that all links are strengthened.
Prefab=globalization....not good
Everywhere I look, every single design website/magazine , all of them are pushing prefabricated homes.....why? Why do we continue to outsource everything...even our own homes. Why do we insist on factory made even when we know what it all means...china.china.china...increased transportation of objects, the devaluation and demise of local craftsman,local material use, and and the associated lack of appropriateness to site, region, local weather and spirit.
What is wrong with local, homemade, in our back yard? Is it that local equals boring? It doesn't have to be.
In this time prefabrication of whole homes not just the windows is the wrong direction for our planet. We need to put the reins on. The more we give up on our local resource base, talent, and know-how the more we admit that we are lost, that we can't even create the world we want to live in with our own hands, with help from our friends family and community. Its these close ties that need to be nurtured; not devalued.
When we chose to order from catalogues we are admitting that our local resources are inadequate or are exhausted. The more often we give up on providing for ourselves the more needy we become.
SoPo and codes galore
A rendering of proposed dwelling in S.Portland, Maine
Working in South Portland Maine on a project for a client I am again confronted with the codification of the residential sector. The modernist zoning sublime, a system like a dinosaur of sorts already passe'. 250 unweldy pages of codes stacked like cord wood all telling the land owner what to he can do with his chunk of land.
and here it comes, globalized architecture
Building codes are all good right?
Portland Maine, a town trying to be a city, has recently adopted the International Residential Code. The IRC is a rather globalist style code system that breaks down the country into different zones, it is really quite generalized when you consider it tries to handle the whole country. It is an engineers sublime in a sense, everything is turned into a number, a force, a zone. It is a system that insures the dumbing down of architecture, the loss of regional common sense and it creates a need for revision and amendment according to local town environments and needs. However, once again Maine is sheepishly following the times and allowing this sort of modernist coded agenda eclipse local knowledge and practicality.
In the long run this IRC system is flawed much like the globalised NAFTA ecconomy.
Who is going to implement it? Who is going to check up on the contractors and insure that they are complying....Portland has so few residential building code enforcement officials, they are going to be hard pressed to make it to many of the job sites. Would it not be better to spend the time and money on programs that assist builders to making correct decisions rather than hiring more "police officers".
The modern code system creates such redundancies that it is very difficult to be creative or to be able to afford much more than a codified box. Between modernization of electrical systems, insulation, heating systems, radon venting, fire suppression systems etc. the home owner, designer and builder is left with a spent budget. In other words there is no budget for creative and inspirational design. This explains the modern-day boringness found in most homes. In order for your remodeled or new home to meet modern codes for insulative values it must be able to re-enter the earths atmosphere without burning up. A remodeled home goes from a R value of 5 to R-48 in roof systems. Of course in this day of a looming energy crises we need to tighten up the building but to what point is it overly tightened?
Those praising the IRC are architects, builders, and code enforcement personel who argue that it simplifies the system. Those professionals argue that by adopting one code system in all towns it reduces the examination of the varieties of code systems that are in place i.e. BOCA, IBC, IRC, and a long list of other building code acronyms. This is a myth....there will always need to be amendment by each town and there will be the latest year code book, IRC 2004, IRC 2008, etc., etc.. As an example lets look at Radon gas....In the IRC Maine is lumped into a high risk radon zone....this means all new construction has to include radon venting systems below grade. If you know anything about radon gas it precipitates from ledgerock, it rises up through the ground and can become trapped under your basement concrete slab, then seep in and cause the occupants cancer ....that is if you build over ledge....what if you build where there is no ledge immediately below? According to the IRC your builder will have to install radon gas venting systems because it dumbs down critical thinking. Even more what if your designer is smart and keeps everyone above ground, or there is no basement dwelling, which is really the best sense, the building still has to have this radon venting....these redundancies are expensive, and unnecessary.
My point is yes there need to be codes as guidelines but lets not dumb down the issue. There is no replacement for local knowledge. Codes are meant to be guidelines not the end all decision. The IRC is just another code, it will not solve all of our building dilemmas ....thoughful designers, and builders with local understanding will...there is no replacement.
Contractor licensing in Maine = more useless laws
A word or two today about a somewhat mundane topic yet a necessary one, contractor licensing.
Recently Jon Hinck a local politician in my town of Portland has chosen to create a bill that was reported in The West End News
"...would create the Maine Home Contractor Licensing Board, which would oversee the licensing and collection of fees. Under the legislation, any contractors and people who perform residential framing, roofing, siding, insulating, window work or chimney work would require licenses. It would also require the adoption of a model building code.
The bill would also help make sure that contractors who take money in advance can be found and their customers reimbursed when a job is not completed in a workmanlike and reasonably skilled manner."
Sounds good right? Sounds like these thieving darn contractors will finally be controlled right? Well lets just take a look into what State Licensing will do to the contractor. First it will require more money to do contracting work, more money up front to pay for the license, then the bonding, then the contractor liability insurance, then the lawyer fees, on top of the contractors piles of bills for tools, permits, and transportation. Licensing narrows the players down to who has the money, the ability to deal with regulation and bureaucracy. Why is it that politicians think that more laws are going to insure our safety and security? James Fenn a student at Brigham Young University attempted in his thesis dissertation to examine the subject and found that: visit his thesis at http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd708.pdf
"Contractor licensing is a form of occupational regulation whose purpose it is to protect the consumer, the contractor and the industry. This is accomplished by minimum guidelines and standards for obtaining a license. It is still difficult, however, to measure the overall effect of licensing on the construction industry because of intangible benefits such as increased confidence and improved reputation. Yet, in order to have a regulatory system that benefits all of society, states must be able to measure how well licensing is serving the intended purpose for licensing."
As a builder with a masters degree in Architecture I have built homes in states with and without contractor licensing. My opinion is it is more bureaucracy and without affect. From my experience going through the licensing to be a contractor in the state of Montana it amounts to money...paperwork... and more money to the builder ...(Oh but they do give you a sticker and a badge to show you are a good scout). I did not see a more diligent building code enforcement, but what I did see were more builders with licensing as a credential, and its not like these builders were doing a whole lot differently except charging more for their services.
Perhaps one of the more abstract and less discussed topics concerning licensure is how it filters those who do the work in a negative way. Much like the licensing to become an "Architect" it exasperates many of those with the more creative talents, many of those types and I am one of them are sick and tired of "the System" of false credentials. What I have found is the types that put up with these bureaucratic hurdles are the types that are good at, studying and doing what they are told to do. They are usually not the creative types. This is why so much of the "designed?" and built world today lacks imagination. The designer and builder become rule followers, they get good at complying. This might be fine if it is routine maintenance work but what if the project involves creative thinking, or original thought?
Please keep in mind a license doesn't make someone more compliant, it just makes them have to charge more. I wouldn't support the creation of this law when there is not proof that it will even work. With building code enforcement offices already maxed out and undermanned it seems unlikely they will be able to assist in enforcing the new contractor license rules. "those unreliable contractors" I for one am tired of hearing it....if you want a decent builder....research the field of building, know what you are looking for, it is like going to an auto repairman, show that you know the difference between a spark plug and a radiator hose....thats empowerment! Good old fashion knowledge.
