Questioning Architectural Judgment The Problem of Codes in the United States

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 discipline—architecture, 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 10. Coding Affordable Housing: A Case Study of Frame Transformation 11. Sociotechnical Coding as Design Glossary References

Steven A. Moore is Bartlett Cocke Professor of Architecture and Planning and Director of the Graduate Program in Sustainable Design at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. Barbara Wilson is an Assistant Professor of Planning and Sustainable Design and the Director for the Center of Sustainable Development at the University of Texas at Austin, USA.