Code Intersectionality

There’s been some discussion in the last couple of weeks on the topic of Belgian Block paving – usually and somewhat incorrectly referred to as cobblestones – being impassable for people with mobility issues. A solution exists for this particular problem, which is to provide smoother pavement at crosswalks. This allows people in wheelchairs or using canes or other assistive devices to cross without fear of falling while minimizing the visual impact on the street.

In a broader sense, there are many places where there are conflicts not just between the letter of various laws and code provisions, but between their goals. We now provide handrails even on unoccupied roofs, to make them safer for maintenance workers, but those handrails can change the appearance of landmark buildings and interfere with another relatively new requirement to have paths across the roofs of low-rise buildings that are clear for fire-fighters to cross to the rear. We want to save the appearance and materials of historic windows but we want to meet more stringent energy codes. We want to keep historic buildings intact but we want fire-resistance. We want novelty in architectural design and we want our buildings to not leak.

There’s a concept common the social sciences called “intersectionality.” The short version of it is that people are complex and no one aspect of their being defines them, so there is value at looking at multiple identities at once. In the case of buildings, the issue is a bit simpler since the identities are entirely imposed by observers. We have to decide if we want to emphasize historic preservation, risk, aesthetics, environment, or some other aspect of the buildings’ existence, but we cannot eliminate the others. In some cases the codes and regs make the issue simpler for us: for example, buildings listed on the National Register are exempt from New York City’s energy code requirement. Everything in design is a comprise and the specific issues of preservation mean that the compromises are often more visible than they are with new buildings. That’s not new, not surprising, and in my mind, not a bad thing. The overly-restored buildings dubbed “disneyficaton” are the result of preservation winning over all other considerations to its own detriment.