Contested Construction of Green Building Codes in North America: The Case of the Alley Flat Initiative
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46(12) 2617–2641, November 2009
Contested Construction of Green
Building Codes in North America:
The Case of the Alley Flat Initiative
Steven A. Moore and Barbara B. Wilson
[Paper first received, August 2008; in final form, May 2009]
Abstract
Building codes are both an index of social values and a strategy to enforce those
values. On these grounds an examination is made of the emergence of green building
codes in North America as a category of building codes that is particularly important
for sustainable development. The classical definition of sustainability proposes that
multiple, competing frames of interpretation—economic development, environmental
protection and social equity—can, in theory, be balanced. It is found, however, that in
practice equity is generally ignored. Through historical and theoretical investigation,
it is hypothesised that codes which are successful in incorporating equity as a criterion
emerge from public talk and social learning, not abstract speculation. The paper
concludes by articulating a change-oriented research design for an ongoing project
to test this hypothesis.
Economic rationalism [is] the salient feature making of things in such a way that they
of modern economic life as a whole … Labour become interchangeable. Henry Ford was,
in the service of a rational organization for the of course, a progenitor of mechanical stand-
provision of humanity with material goods ardisation. Weber, however, was concerned
has without doubt always appeared to rep-
that in social systems it was people, as well
resentatives of the capitalistic spirit as one
of the most important purposes of their life- as things, that would be held to a single
work (Weber 1958, p. 76). standard. Two decades after Weber it was
Michel Foucault who extended this logic as
Max Weber may have been the first to rec- a critique of modern institutions. Foucault
ognise that the process of modernisation held that the only reason for the “disciplines”
is synonymous with standardisation—the to exist was “to increase both the docility and
process through which we discipline the the utility of all the elements of the system”
Steven A. Moore and Barbara B. Wilson are in the School of Architecture, The University of Texas at
Austin, 1 University Station B7500, Austin, Texas, TX 78712, USA.
E-mail: samoore@mail.utexas.edu and bebrown@mail.utexas.edu.
0042-0980 Print/1360-063X Online
© 2009 Urban Studies Journal Limited
DOI: 10.1177/00420980093463272618 STEVEN A. MOORE AND BARBARA B. WILSON (Foucault, 1975/1977, p. 218). In Discipline directly to transport or manufacturing—their and Punish (1975/1977) and elsewhere, he assumption perhaps being that the goals suggested that modern institutions suc- of sustainable development are most chal- cessfully reproduce themselves in a two-step lenged at the ends of manufacturing and process: first, by imposing rules on an initi- automobile tail pipes. In the popular imagin- ally unwilling population and, secondly, by ation, architecture is a fine art, not a source making it attractive for some of that popu- of environmental degradation. However, lation to internalise the rules as their own. according to the US Department of Energy Our argument is that it is a short step from (2003), the production and operation of Weber and Foucault to understand technol- architecture are more damaging to the envir- ogical codes of all kinds in the same way— onment than any other sector of the economy, as having both a mechanical and social including transport. Buildings account for dimension. The codes which regulate our almost half of all greenhouse gas emissions increasingly technological world are insti- and more than half of North America’s annual tutional rules for using the new tools invented, energy consumption. It is in this context that presumably, to make life better; and in we examine the codes that regulate the built our current situation ‘making life better’ environment. And to focus our concerns even has become synonymous with ‘sustainable more narrowly, we will examine the problem development’—conceptualised as balancing of affordable/sustainable housing, because it the competing interests of the economy, the is here that conflicts over economy, ecology environment and social equity (Campbell, and social equity are most acute. 1996). It is well documented, however, that Foucaultian logic would posit that, although the social equity dimension of sustainability we may resist adding more insulation to the is generally ignored (Oden, n.d.). For this roof of our old house because it is expensive, reason, we focus our attention on equitable or resist zoning ordinances as an affront to building codes. personal autonomy, we gradually internalise In what follows, we use the term building those rules as part of our ‘building culture’ codes in the broadest possible sense to include (Davis, 2006). Ben-Joseph (2005), for example, all those planning, zoning, construction, argues that we internalise codes, not so much manufacturing and public health laws, by being rewarded, but by forgetting the policies and ordinances that regulate the reason for their making in the first place. Put built world. We view the city as a giant eco- in anthropological terms, we might say that socio-technical artefact that is productively tacit practices are continually replaced by studied through the lenses of science and self-consciously adopted new technologies technology studies (Rohracher, 1999; Misa, that eventually become tacit practices. In 2003), as well as through the traditional this technological drama, our social capacit- lenses of architecture (Huge and Tuerk, 2004), ies merge with the material capacities of landscape architecture (Ben-Joseph, 2005) our tools because it is both convenient and and planning (Carmona et al., 2006). This obedient to do so (Shah and Kesan, 2007). interdisciplinary perspective introduces new As have other science and technology terms and categories of analysis that readers scholars, we argue that technological codes may find unfamiliar, but that we find helpful. are not a simple matter of technological Some readers may also wonder at the safety or efficiency (Winner, 1977; Feenberg, outset why, if our interests are focused on 1991). Rather, codes of all kinds are both an sustainable development, we would examine index of changing social values and at the building codes rather than those related same time a strategy to enforce those values.
GREEN BUILDING CODES 2619
What we add to this tradition is the idea that a local civil code for affordable/sustainable
the generally tacit social values embedded housing. We conclude by considering how
in technological codes can be made both this project provides an opportunity to test
explicit and more just through the related the ‘emergent hypothesis’ using a change-
processes of public talk and social learning. oriented research methodology (Lincoln and
Public talk, Barber (1984, p. 177; original Guba, 1985).
emphasis) holds, “is not about the world; it is
talk that makes and remakes the world”—it is
1. Historical Origins and
a conversation in which the participants come
Trajectory of the Sustainability
to understand, and value, the ‘situated per-
Discourse in North America
spectives’ of fellow citizens (Haraway, 1995).
It is such transformed perspectives that foster We have argued elsewhere that the contem-
what Holden (2008) and Minteer (2002, porary discourse of sustainability in North
p. 45) describe as social learning, or “learning America derives from the latent fusion of two
achieved through the practice of collective 19th century social movements: the envir-
enquiry and public deliberation”. Taken onmental movement, promoted by such
together, these terms contribute to Dewey’s figures as John Muir (progenitor of the Sierra
(1927/1954) claim, that “successful inquiry Club), and the public health movement,
always takes place within a community”— promoted by such figures as Colonel John
one willing to experiment with alternative Waring (Street Cleaning Commissioner of
futures through action (Hickman, 2001, New York) (Moore and Engstrom, 2005).
p. 74). Our argument is that Dewey’s notion Without these two historical discourses, our
of action-oriented and community-based concern for sustainable development could
inquiry can overcome Foucault’s legitimate not have emerged in its current form.
concern for our entrenched habits of obedi- From our current position in history, most
ence. Pragmatists in general argue that we of us find it difficult to understand why the
need not be held hostage to the discourses into sets of values that ignited Muir, Waring and
which we were born because the accumulation their respective allies remained distinct for
of social learning can produce new, self- so long. In contemporary life, barely a day
consciously adopted codes that we describe goes by without the newspapers documenting
as ‘civil’ in nature. Yet before it is possible to yet another example of how environmental
adequately describe the making of civil codes, degradation is directly linked to a decline
it is necessary to put different kinds of codes in human health. From a 19th century per-
into context. spective, however, the reverse is the case—
In section 1, we examine the dialectic ori- seen through the grimy windows of New
gins of the sustainability discourse in North York or Chicago, it was difficult for citizens
America. This provides the historical back- to imagine what the interests of nature pre-
ground required to consider, in section 2, the servation in a remote locale had to do with
types of codes and strategies of enforcement the local interests of poor urban immigrants
that have come into use over time. We find who toiled for long hours in factories. The
that each type of code has its advantages and frames of interpretation that joined Muir to
disadvantages, but that civil codes are best at the California Redwoods and Waring to New
incorporating social equity as a criterion for York’s sanitary sewers had no overlap. Simply
action and public assessment. In section 3, we put, it was unlikely that the social élites who
briefly reflect on an ongoing project in which promoted nature preservation would engage
we act as advocates for the development of willingly in public talk, as we have defined2620 STEVEN A. MOORE AND BARBARA B. WILSON
it earlier, with the socialists and utilitarians Unlike the mainstream groups, the social
who promoted the public health. As Beck claims of these alternative groups directly
(1992, pp. 191–199) and others have docu- addresses the questions of gender, ethnicity,
mented, it was not until environmental race and class … by pursuing a message of
environmental justice and equity … [this]
degradation was democratised, and its con-
reconstituted environmentalism has the cap-
sequences were experienced by the middle- acity to establish a common ground between
class citizens living in the vicinity of Buffalo’s and among constituencies and issues, bridg-
Love Canal or Cleveland’s Ciahoga River, that ing a new politics of social and environmental
the environmental and public health move- change (Gottlieb, 2005, p. 405).
ments could be theoretically connected by
the Brundtland Commission Report of 1987 This “reconstituted environmentalism” is
(WCED, 1987). Yet, as already noted, that quickly becoming one of the world’s largest
theoretical connection has rarely been real- social movements; and if these hybrid strands
ised in practice. Sadly, as in the 19th century, of environmentalism can collectively inte-
21st-century discourses are more divided than grate themselves into other sectors of society,
ever into distinct camps, with few oppor- then the movement may be able to garner the
tunities for public talk and social learning force to make significant change (Hawken,
to emerge (Brulle, 2000). Although it is not 2007). However, to date, the minor differences
likely that the traditional environmental and between environmental, public health and
public health discourses will merge in the social justice camps have prevented their
near future, a third more integrated discourse effective collaboration towards shared goals
is already appearing—one that we refer to as in a major way.
the spatial justice movement. In sum, the continued bifurcation of the
The idea of ‘spatial justice’ has roots in the traditional environmental and public health
environmental justice movement initiated movements provides evidence that the sus-
by Robert Bullard, Hazel Johnson and many tainability discourse has generally failed to
grassroots organisations in the early 1980s.1 realise the initial promise of the Brundtland
These groups made visible the inequitable proposal. Although many have conceptual-
environmental burdens borne by racial mi- ised how social equity is related to economic
norities, women and citizens of developing development and environmental protection,
nations. More recent scholarship by Agyeman the allergic discourses produced by these
et al. (2003) has challenged the viability communities make it difficult for individuals
of sustainable development understood in to engage in social process that leads to the
purely technological terms. Spatial justice kind of ‘successful action’ imagined by Dewey.
marries the traditionally opposed environ- The problem, we deduce, may be the means
mentalist and social justice rhetoric to fight used more than the goal sought. We should
for shared causes like responsible devel- recognise that green building codes intended
opment and green, community-based jobs. to realise sustainable development must be
Individuals committed to the spatial justice the product of public talk, social learning
movement tend to be grounded in small, local and action—no technological code reasoned
organisations that have become collective by experts and imposed from outside social
through Internet-driven networks created processes (save a dictatorial one) can hope to
by such umbrella organisations as the World produce successfully the conditions desired
Social Forum, Partnership for Working by the advocates of sustainable develop-
Families and Right to the City. As Robert ment (Moore, 2007; Brand, 2005). Towards
Gottlieb argues that end, and in the historical context of theGREEN BUILDING CODES 2621
environmental and public health discourses the characteristics of systems or institutions;
already discussed, we need to understand frames are located between actors, not in actors
the process and structure of code-making in or above actors (Bijker, 1987, p. 173; original
emphasis).
contested territory. Establishing the emer-
gent structure of codes in section 2 will set More recently, Dryzek (1997) has used frame
the stage for our examination of a specific analysis to investigate environmental dis-
case in section 3. courses and Guy and Farmer (2001) have used
this tool in an even more focused manner to
investigate environmental discourses within
2. Codification in Contested
the discipline of architecture. Foucault’s ori-
Territory: Four Types
ginal position is that all frames bind observers,
Earlier, we argued that building codes are even if temporarily, to provisional meanings
both an index of emergent social values and which are equally true. Although this posi-
a strategy to enforce those same values. In tion has been very influential, our use of the
this section, we propose that four types of concept runs more in line with Bijker’s and
building codes have developed over time— with Richard Rorty’s critique of Foucault, in
tacit, representational, economic and civil.2 which Rorty rejects the notion that all frames
These types are not periodic, which would are equally true or useful (Rorty, 1994, p. 262).
suggest that the appearance of the second In lieu of Foucault’s relativism, we hold that
replaces the first, but are spatial as well as sustainability is an inherently hopeful story-
temporal—certain types of codes appear in line (Moore, 2007, pp. 6–7) in which some
different places at different times and order frames of interpretation are better than others
spaces as well as things. Codes are, then, in the project of achieving ecological health
geo-historical types that have rather porous and social equity (Guy and Moore, 2005).
boundaries. We also find that societies con- The six frames employed in this study (see
tinue to develop various strategies of code- Table 1) derive both from the literature and
making to articulate and enforce social values. from the ongoing case study discussed later.
These strategies are examined by using five Their significance is that they help us to under-
lenses. stand the social values that order code-making
The first lens used is frame analysis, a tool as well as the objects and spaces regulated.
that derives from Foucault’s notion intro- The second lens used to examine types
duced earlier—that meaning is always bound and strategies of building codes is a mix
by the frame through which phenomena are of historical and empirical data. By briefly
viewed. In The Archaeology of Knowledge looking at concrete examples of codes in
(1972/1976), Foucault characterises inter- their historical context, we bring the frames
pretive frames as being in a constant state of of code-makers into clearer focus. The third
evolution, except at those unfortunate lens used examines how exemplar codes
moments in history when local politics are actually work in society—how individuals
able temporarily to fix meaning. Following and their artefacts are related through ac-
Foucault’s lead, Bijker (1987) further de- tion. The fourth and final lens examines the
veloped the idea of interpretive frames with kind of authority required to operationalise
regard to technology. Bijker argues that particular code types. The assumption here
is that all technical codes describe and en-
The concept of technological frame is meant force power relations between people and
to refer to the interaction of various actors. their artefacts (Winner, 1999; Latour, 1987).
Thus it is not an individual’s characteristic, nor We take each of the four code types in turn2622 STEVEN A. MOORE AND BARBARA B. WILSON
and then employ this theoretical ground to an abstract system of form-making. Hersey
construct an hypothesis to be tested through (1988, p. 5) goes on to argue that Greek “law
social action. and morality were first conceived as a body
of ancestral edicts preserved in works of art”
Tacit Codes and in the social and material process of
Tacit knowledge is generally understood making that art. With regard to tacit codes
to be that which is embedded in cultural in general, Oliver (1987, p. 159) argues that
practices—it is knowledge that is difficult for through such social and material processes
individuals to articulate because it is impli- “the world is made somewhat more compre-
citly laced within our assumptions and not hensible by bringing … observed phenomena
formally codified in the modern sense. Tacit within a system”. The Greek system of tacit
building codes, then, are similar. They are the codes was, then, what we will call a practice-
habits of building that characterise a people based strategy in which citizens participated
in the same manner as does their language. and enforced the ancestral hierarchy of the
The difference is that habits of building are gods. The vernacular building practices of
material whereas habits of speaking are not. almost any culture can be understood in a
It is important to stress that participation in similar fashion.
a tacit building code does not limit builders
to rote making. Rather, tacit designers are Representational Codes
free to innovate within a set of practices and In lieu of a practice-based strategy, some
patterns that are ‘context-bound’ (Moore and builders have employed a form-based strategy
Karvonen, 2008; Davis, 2006; Glassie, 1975; to develop and enforce evolving social values.
Norberg-Schulz, 1979; Oliver, 1987; Rapoport, The built environment ordered by this frame
1969). is a system of visual signs that both reflect
The best example of a tacit building code and create social affiliation. The codified neo-
may be the classical orders. The orders certainly classical orders mentioned earlier provide
became formally codified, first by Vitruvius many examples of representational codes in
in the 1st century BC, then in Alberti’s De re the form of what North Americans refer to
aeddificaroria (Ten Books on Architecture) as ‘pattern books’. These pattern books were
written in the mid 15th century, and, most developed by such 19th-century designers as
strictly and abstractly, by Perrault and others A. J. Downing (1861), of which Figure 2 is an
in the era of Enlightenment (Perez-Gomez, Italianate example (which Downing saw to
1983). More recent scholarship, however, be appropriate for the middle-class family),
argues that early Greeks themselves did and have been revived by the advocates of
not understand the orders to be an abstract new urbanism as a strategy to combat the
system of pure mathematical form and pro- suburban sprawl that derives from single-use
portion as did the Roman, Renaissance and Euclidean zoning (UDA et al., 2004).3 The
Enlightenment architects who later codified new-urbanist-inspired SmartCode, which
them. Rather, the frame that related the Greeks is based on the concept of ‘the transect’, has
and their buildings was cosmological— become a principal tool of anti-sprawl devel-
meaning that they saw themselves as pro- opment. According to Chad Emerson, the
ducing cosmological order in the world transect is a representation of
through the material process of building
“tropes of sacrifice” (Hersey, 1988, p. 5). As commonly accepted qualities associated with
George Hersey demonstrates, the caryatid different areas that make up a community,
portico shown in Figure 1, for example, told county, or region—from the very urban to the
a living story of tribal retribution—it was not very rural (Emerson, 2007, p. 65).GREEN BUILDING CODES 2623
Figure 1. The caryatid portico, the Erectheum, Athens: an example of cosmologically guided
building practice
Photo : Dimitris Constantin (Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-108927).
The qualities to which Emerson refers are
a hierarchy of scale, density and building
typology found in many mid-20th-century
American towns, which reflect the values of
that time.
Although representational codes and form-
based strategies can be useful, we find that
they embody two significant problems. First,
the ‘transect’ hierarchy of rural to urban is de-
rived from abstract organisational patterns
that tend to impose ‘preconceived archetypes
Figure 2. A. J. Downing saw ornamented or models as a solution to any site’ (Carmona
villas such as this one to be both et al., 2006) and, in some cases, perpetuate the
representative and supportive of the lifestyles same patterns of land use segregation the tool
of the upper-middle class is meant to avoid (Hirt, 2007). And, secondly,
Source : Downing (1842). the Congress for New Urbanism’s (CNU)2624 STEVEN A. MOORE AND BARBARA B. WILSON
belief in the SmartCode’s ability to right Codes that regulate construction materials
social and environmental ills often blinds like plumbing, mechanical or electrical sys-
new urbanists to the complex web of political tems in buildings are typical examples as are
interactions at play within a socio-technical dimensional standards like the distance a
system as complex as the built environment building must be ‘set back’ from the property
(Knox, 2005; Pyatok, 2002). Although CNU line. Examined in detail, prescriptive codes
advocates like Emily Talen argue that the spa- are themselves of two kinds. First are those
tial hierarchies proposed by the SmartCode that seek to standardise weights, measures
are inherently more just than traditional and strengths of materials across space so as
Euclidean zoning, she also recognises that to amplify their exchange value. From our
“the SmartCode has not yet been tested” in vantage-point in history, it is easy to under-
this context (Talen, 2006, p. 36). stand that economic exchanges are made
In general, we can agree with Talen (1999, more quickly and more efficiently when, for
p. 1334) that “First and foremost, the social example, a pound of 16-penny framing nails
prescription of new urbanism is based on were made to be the same size, weight and
spatial determinism”. We will, however, extend strength in Chicago as in New York. With-
her logic to argue that representational out a common standard, the established
building codes often result in a kind of archi- habits of wood-frame construction in one
tectural determinism where designers and city would have to be laboriously reconsidered
their clients imagine that reproducing the with each purchase of material from the
material setting of a past society can repro- other. Clearly, it is in the economic interest of
duce similar social relationships and hier- the nation as a whole to prescribe standard
archies (Gieryn, 2002; Sorkin, 1992). building product qualities and it is for this
reason that the US National Institute of
Economic Codes Standards and Technology was established
Economic codes, as we define them, are in- in 1901 to, in their words, “promote U.S. in-
herently modern because they are tied to the novation and industrial competitiveness by
modern notion of efficiency and inherently advancing measurement science, standards,
capitalist because they are tied to modern and technology” (NIST, 2008).
notions of profit and entrepreneurial risk. The second kind of prescriptive economic
For example, Euclidean, or single-use, zoning code derives from what Jeremy Bentham
codes are historically tied to public health referred to as ‘civic economy’. A principal argu-
concerns, but they are more basically tied to ment in favour of Bentham’s proposal was
economic motivations because they protect the recognition (very unpopular at the time)
property values from the risk of fluctuation that “preventative measures in raising the
in response to exposure to unhealthy or standard of health and the chances of life”
undesirable conditions. Unlike tacit or rep- (Melosi, 2000, p. 276) for the poor would
resentational codes, which employ single benefit society as a whole. Towards that end,
strategies to develop and enforce social values, Bentham held as a part of his ‘greatest happi-
economic codes employ three distinct strat- ness principle’ that
egies: prescriptive, incentive and performance.
the only purpose for which power can be
Each of these strategies deals differently with
rightfully exercised over any other member of
risks that are inherently economic. civilized society, against his will, is to prevent
harm to others (Melosi, 2000, p. 15).
Prescriptive economic codes. Prescriptive
codes are those that lay down exact specifica- And in the hands of Bentham’s principal
tions for making a class of artefacts or spaces. assistant Edwin Chadwick, these insightsGREEN BUILDING CODES 2625 were the basis to propose the first general Both kinds of prescriptive economic codes building code for Britain (Melosi, 2000, p. 339). see the built environment as an assembly of A good example that employs utilitarian technological objects in which the relation- reasoning is legislation that denied some ship between humans and their artefacts is London citizens the right to build thatched anthropocentrically ordered. Understood in roofs on their homes and thus prevent, at this way, code-makers assume that their own least in theory, another Great Fire like that agency can be transferred to nails or roofing of 1666. The same reasoning holds today materials—that is, artefacts can stand in in requiring single-family homes to have a for human action. In his study of the door- minimum side-yard set-back of five feet in closer Jim Johnson (1988) makes similar order to reduce the risk of fire spreading from observations.4 In lieu of a human porter the adjacent house. standing by the door night and day, we have Figure 3. An early zoning map of part of New York: early zoning in New York was meant to ensure property values, access to sunlight and public health in certain parts of the city Source : New York Times (1916).
2626 STEVEN A. MOORE AND BARBARA B. WILSON developed a mechanical porter relentlessly to Incentive-based economic codes. In lieu enforce institutional agreements that doors of perennially unpopular prescriptive strat- must be kept tightly closed in the case of fire egies to develop and enforce economic codes, or inclement weather yet easily opened to regulators of all kinds have increasingly allow human passage. These social “scripts” adopted a second type of strategy—economic are then “transcribed, inscribed, or encoded” incentive. It has become a common practice into the technical artefact (Johnson, 1988, for municipal governments to offer real estate p. 306). developers a ‘density bonus’ if they will pro- Prescriptive codes work, of course, only if mise job creation or include in their projects there is an authority behind them as pervasive facilities like parks, which the city has no and relentless as the door-closer. At the scale funds to build, but for which there is public of the city or nation, it takes a highly central- demand. This is an economic trade-off that ised ‘command-and-control’ form of govern- has two sides: on the one hand, the developer ment, like the one advocated by Chadwick can construct a building taller than the legis- and the utilitarians, to maintain standards lated norm (and thus improve efficiency by upon which the civic economy depends. Just creating additional saleable space on a fixed as Bentham’s 19th-century contemporaries area of property) and, on the other, citizens get saw prescriptive codes as overinvasive, so increased job opportunity or a park (but one do 21st-century conservatives. Yet it is not with diminished sunlight). In Manchester, UK, only conservatives who are sceptical of the the Beetham Hilton Tower, as seen in Figure 4, effectiveness of prescriptive codes, but also is the tallest building in an otherwise early- those progressives like Jane Jacobs and Lewis industrial city. The city council approved the Mumford who objected, for example, to building proposal with limited public input the categorical rigidity of single-use zoning as a part of an entrepreneurial planning in modern cities. Jacobs in particular criti- agenda that is meant to reinvigorate the city cised the technocratic zoning of her beloved through its ‘corporate’ privilege of economic New York as an authoritative practice akin development over historical preservation to “placing a grid over this profusion of (Short, 2007). It is left to the market, not to unknowable possibilities” (quoted in Scott, citizens, to decide if the trade-off of commo- 1998, p. 139). dities is commensurable. Yet, prescription is not always the tool of The frame that defines the relationship totalitarian states attempting to order an of cities and developers in this strategic scen- unwilling populace. In the first era of stand- ario is entrepreneurial—just as developers ardisation in North America (1900–30) many accept all the economic risks inherent in manufacturing groups emerged with the realising large complex projects, a few elected sole purpose of standardising their own officials must symmetrically accept all the products, in a manner they could tolerate, be- political risks inherent in trading social fore government determined for them what ‘goods’ and ‘bads’. All too often, however, standards would be enforced from above. such an arrangement ends up shifting envir- The American Institute of Steel Construction onmental risks to those not present at the (AISC), organised in 1921 with a mission to negotiating table (Beck, 1992). The kind of ‘make structural steel the material of choice’ authority required to keep the deal-making is a good example. Prescriptive codes can, in operation is, of course, the form of liberal- then, be self-imposed and enforced as a de- capitalist governance North Americans have fensive measure against ‘outside’ control. embraced.
GREEN BUILDING CODES 2627 Figure 4. One of the tallest residential buildings in Europe, the Beetham Hilton Tower disrupts the early industrial skyline for which Manchester is currently on the tentative list of World Heritage Sites Source : Andrew Karvonen.
2628 STEVEN A. MOORE AND BARBARA B. WILSON Performance-based economic codes. The third strategy employed in constructing and enforcing economic codes is a performance- based strategy. Rather than prescribe the size, shape and technical qualities of artefacts that can be produced, performance-based codes specify only the outcomes desired. Although it is tempting to imagine that performance- based codes are a recent innovation tied to the development of capitalism, they were used as early as 1780 BC in the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi (Figure 5; also see Ben- Joseph, 2005). This code is the origin of the well-known adage, ‘an eye for an eye’ and is the first and most stringent performative building regulation in human history. The Code of Hammurabi states that, if a builder builds a house and it falls down, he is bound by law to rebuild the house solidly; and if the house falls and kills its owner, the builder shall be put to death. The frame that relates builders to authorities in this strategic scen- ario we call consequential and, to make this relationship more concrete for its modern ap- plication, we will use as an example the design of the Commerzbank Tower in Frankfurt by Sir Norman Foster and Partners. Fire protection codes for office buildings focus a great deal of attention on the evacu- ation of smoke from corridors and stairs because more deaths are caused by smoke inhalation than by the fire itself. In this con- Figure 5. A portion of the stone stela text, the Commerzbank Tower presented a containing the only known inscription of the particularly difficult challenge because its Code of Hammurabi design included an interior atrium that, left Source : © Trustees of the British Museum. unventilated in the event of fire, would surely contribute to the loss of life. This case is of interest to us because, rather than follow older the condition that the designers’ computer prescriptive codes on how to design office simulations of smoke evacuation would be atriums, the design team asked city officials physically tested in the completed building to consider an alternative design that would before an occupancy permit would be issued. prove, they argued, more beautiful, more Although the design team experienced effective and less costly. As is the case increas- significant anxiety on the day of the physical ingly in cities with sophisticated engineer- test, when city officials set off smoke bombs ing staff of their own, Frankfurt officials in the freshly finished atrium, the alternative had the authority to accept the proposal on design successfully satisfied the criteria for
GREEN BUILDING CODES 2629
life safety and the building was occupied social values have changed. LEED is, then,
shortly thereafter.5 This case illustrates that evolving quickly from being a hybrid eco-
the consequentialist frame by which designers nomic code into what we call a civil code.
and city officials were related was successful
because it rewarded the creativity and experi- Civil Codes
mental thinking of both parties. The fourth and final type of code to emerge is
As we noted earlier, John Dewey (1927/ what we refer to as civil codes. Over the past
1954, p. 203) argued for an experimental two decades, Andrew Feenberg has developed
method, much like the one employed in the an historical and philosophical critique of
Commerzbank Tower, where the outcomes the notion that all technological codes are
of provisional designs are “subject to ready based on the modern ideal of efficiency—the
and flexible revision in light of observed idea that improved technology can simul-
consequences”. In contemporary professional taneously reduce the input and increase the
jargon, Dewey’s proposal recognised the bene- output of any system. In this model, he argues,
fits of what we now call ‘rapid prototyping’ we assume that social ‘goods’ can only be
and ‘feedback loops’. The flexible relation- realised as a ‘trade-off’ for economic efficiency.
ship between designers and city officials in This kind of reasoning was demonstrated
Frankfurt could not exist, of course, without earlier in our examination of incentive strat-
the explicit authority granted to city officials by egies of economic codes where citizens traded-
citizens. We characterise such a performance- off sunlight for a park. The problem with this
based economic code as pragmatic in the model, Feenberg argues, is that
limited context of fire safety concerns.
raising the standard means altering the defi-
Another example of flexible code-making,
nition of the object, not paying a price for
already mentioned, is the dominant North an alternative good or value as the trade-off
American green building code, LEED (Leader- model holds (Feenberg, 2002, p. 95).
ship in Energy and Environmental Design),
developed by the US Green Building Council To make his reasoning concrete, Feenberg
(USGBC). LEED has developed as an eco- uses the example of the single-walled boilers
nomic code that employs both incentive- and that were commonly installed on 19th-
performance-based strategies and is, therefore, century riverboats. After many murderous
a hybrid. LEED allows designers to use their explosions, government eventually required
own judgement, but only in selecting from all boilers to have two walls rather than one,
a predetermined list of performance criteria which dramatically reduced the frequency
that must be empirically verified before a of catastrophes. The point here is that some
basic, silver, gold or platinum certificate of technical standards for boilers were taken
compliance is issued. When the LEED rating out of the economic realm of trade-off argu-
system first entered the marketplace in 2000 it ments because, through public talk and social
was entirely voluntary—the incentive to satisfy learning, citizens could agree that civilised
the criteria was to acquire public recognition people do not risk innocent lives to make
for building in a manner that promoted river travel just a little bit less expensive.
environmental and public health. In the ‘Civilisational change’—the adoption of new
brief period since its introduction, however, paradigmatic social values—as Feenberg
the need to receive LEED certification for the argues, alters the day-to-day calculation of
construction of public buildings and sub- economic value. At some point in history,
divisions has been legislated by many muni- giving up the very idea of slavery, child
cipal and state governments. In other words, labour, safety provisions for boilers, or very2630 STEVEN A. MOORE AND BARBARA B. WILSON
tall buildings becomes an extra-economic Imrie notes that, during the congressional
choice that is no longer understood as a ‘trade- hearings before the ratification of ADA,
off ’ by society. Civil codes are, then, those senators employed economic logic, moving
codes that act to redefine technical artefacts away from a pure rights argument to a hybrid
not by trading off “wealth against morality, frame based upon labour market efficiency
but as realizing the economic potentialities and welfare reform. Developing a ‘crip-
associated with its ethical claims” (Feenberg, politics’ that celebrates both the diversity
2002, p. 99). However, that is not all and the importance of the movement’s cam-
paign, disability rights activists resisted the
The economic significance of technological urge to differentiate the smaller strands of
change often pales besides its wider human their cause in the interest of building shared
implications in framing a way of life. In such
strength to promote more expansive, inclu-
cases, regulation defines the cultural frame-
work of the economy; it is not an act in the
sive frames.
economy (Feenberg, 2002, p. 97; original Even this brief examination of the ADA
emphasis). demonstrates that it has been successful for
two principal reasons. First, disability rights
In this passage, Feenberg refers to our current activists employed multiple frames of inter-
interest in the cultural frames that relate pretation in constructing the proposed code.
humans to each other and the artefacts we Rather than employ a single frame derived
make. Perhaps the best example in the recent from their own experience, or a single techno-
history of codifying the built environment cratic frame—as in our previous example
is the Americans with Disabilities Act, or of exhausting smoke from a burning office
ADA. The disability rights movement is a tower—through public talk, they collaged
vigilant yet flexible constellation of interest- together a more expansive frame-work or
groups that have managed to employ every way of understanding that eroded the bound-
imaginable argument in the service of their aries between systems. In other words, they
overarching cause. Aligning themselves catalysed social learning not by proselytising
with the larger civil rights movement as the to others, but by listening and then crafting
disability rights movement grew in strength, collaborative and compelling stories about
numbers and scope, the younger movement how the world might be better. And, sec-
employed the already-accepted discourse of ondly, their collage-making was experiential
rights to gain momentum early in their strug- rather than theoretical or abstract—it was
gle. However, as the civil rights movement built through action. The perfect example to
became overshadowed by the debates around make this distinction clear is the Brundtland
the Vietnam War, the disability rights move- Commission itself.
ment aligned their cause with veteran services. It would be perfectly accurate to describe
Yet the movement did not stop there. Through the Brundtland report as a valiant attempt
public talk to sew together three competing frames of
interpretation—economic development,
Coalitions … have developed between the environmental protection and social equity.
AIDS lobby, women’s organizations and
Over a period of three years, the hard-working
‘grey power’, while, more recently their
lobbying for civil rights legislation for dis-
members of this UN-sponsored commission
ability has sought to interlink a radical, left, met periodically to discuss how three such
politics, with the social and political concerns distinct sets of interests might join forces
of the right wing in America (Imrie, 1996, to resolve global problems. Their interaction
p. 63). was abstract and discursive.GREEN BUILDING CODES 2631
In contrast, ADA activists struggled daily temerity to integrate multiple frames of inter-
to make particular sets of stairs or particular pretation into a new frame.
bathrooms accessible in the unique condi- Table 1 summarises some qualities of the
tions of their hometowns. Their interaction four types of codes we have found and the six
was concrete and action-based, not abstract. strategies employed to develop and enforce
And it was in these local conditions that they social values. To be clear, we do not argue that
found common cause with the veterans, these code types exist ‘out there’ in the pure
building managers, design professionals and form that our categories suggest. The example
politicians that they literally bumped into. of LEED suggests that many other hybrids
Rather than disparage the abstractions of also exist. Rather, our categories are helpful
uneven development from a distance, ADA because they reflect the ‘logics’ employed by
activists threw themselves into solving their code-makers (Guy and Farmer, 2001). The
shared, local problems one at a time as a way day-to-day codes that are found in federal,
to make their own situation visible to fellow state and municipal legislation are overlap-
citizens and it was out of collective action ping, far messier and reflect the complex
that new hybrid frames of interpretation social interests involved in their making.
were produced. Where the Brundtland model In considering Table 1, some readers may
of sustainability is abstract and difficult for suspect a left-to-right teleology in our cat-
people to understand and apply practically, egories that favours civil codes over other
helping a legless veteran up the courthouse types. We recognise that it is there because our
steps to vote is a hard-to-forget experience from explicit interest is to foster social change—to
which we learn to see things differently. reframe specific technological standards as
The distinction is not simply that the extra-economic. At the same time, however,
deductive logic of the Brundtland commis- we recognise that civilisational change is not
sioners was more opaque than the inductive only the successful production of new civil
experiences staged by ADA activists. By rela- codes by a few activists, but also the develop-
ting many (sometimes unexpected) frames ment of new tacit knowledge, values and
of interpretation through public talk, rather codes within society as a whole. The process
than relating only a few technical experts of code-making is, then, circular as well as
as in the case of the Commerzbank Tower, dynamic and occurs at many levels simul-
social activists were able to gather broad and taneously. Each type of code may be helpful
therefore more powerful resources (Latour, in different situations.
1987). Another way to state this is that activists In sum, the theoretical speculation gives
integrated or transformed multiple frames rise to a working hypothesis
into a new public framework, rather than
sewing together existing frames. We consider Hypothesis 1: Civil codes, or those that merge
multiple frames of interpretation through
the construction of such a framework to be
public talk and social learning, will more
not only technically pragmatic in the narrow successfully include social equity as a dimen-
manner of performance-based economic sion of sustainable development.
codes, but also pragmatic in the philosophical
sense that a large group of non-experts were The immediate research question is to ask
able to reframe the very definition of what how this hypothesis can be tested. To return
we mean by ‘access’ to public life in the US. to the literature would, we recognise, only
The ADA became a code that literally binds result in self-validation because the dominant
all Americans to new building habits because model of sustainability that derives from the
its progenitors had the imagination and Brundtland Commission report was itself a2632 STEVEN A. MOORE AND BARBARA B. WILSON
theoretical triangulation of competing frames
Performance strategy Integrated strategy
artefacts through
of interpretation. And as we argued earlier,
By reframing
this conceptual model has so far not been
Democratic
public talk
successful in achieving equitable conditions
Multiple (Moore, 2007). We propose, then, that the
ADA
Civil
hypothesis can be adequately tested only by
putting it to work and, in this context, we turn
to the case of the Alley Flat Initiative.
Smoke exhaust
Consequential
By rewarding
Pragmatic 3. The Alley Flat Initiative as a
creativity
Step Towards an Integrated
Civil Code
Civilisational change is not easily produced.
Fusing multiple frames into an integrated
(form-based strategy) Prescriptive strategy Incentive strategy
Liberal capitalist
Entrepreneurial
Economic
Density bonus
code must be done in a critical, place-based,
By rewarding
risk-takers
self-reflective, incremental manner that is
hard to comprehend fully from a level of
abstraction. Pragmatism would tell us that
learning by doing is the only way to under-
stand deeply such a process (Fischer, 2003).
human agency in
control or group
Command-and-
Change-oriented (or activist) research is a
Technological
By limiting building By relocating
Door-closers
method of social learning that combines local
and expert knowledge in the hope of facilit-
dominant story-lines artefacts
defence
ating the emergence of inclusive cultural
practices, while also gaining access to better
sources of information than traditional
methods allow (Hale, 2001). Thus, in the name
Representational
of place-based learning, we will reflect on
vocabularies to
Hierarchical
the experiences of a change-oriented project
we embarked on in 2005 with the lower-
Table 1. Types and strategies of building codes
Social
income residents of east Austin, Texas. This
CNU
reflection will provide an appropriate vehicle
with which to test our working hypothesis.
process of building
Contemporary Austin is a city known
By ordering the
Classical orders
(practice-based
material/social
internationally as ‘the live music capital of
Cosmological
Theocratic
the world’ and as an exemplar of sustainable
strategy)
development (Portney, 2003). When the city
Tacit
was settled and initially planned in 1836,
it was racially integrated, at least spatially
speaking, with two of the first freed-slave
Type of authority
communities west of the Mississippi River
How they work
springing up near former plantation lands
just after the Civil War. However, the Plan
Example
Frame
for the City of Austin, adopted in 1928, in-
cluded specific codes and ordinances thatGREEN BUILDING CODES 2633 prevented minority residents from receiving The character and integrity of east Austin’s city services if they continued to reside on real historical neighbourhoods are at risk and estate of increasing value located west of East the issue of affordable housing has reached Avenue. Thus, in the name of ‘separate but epic proportions. This sad story is, of course, equal’ treatment, most African American and a classic example of the ‘forgotten E’ (equity) Hispanic communities were forcibly relocated in the pursuit of sustainable development. by the selective allocation of infrastructure When asked what was most needed in their to a ‘negro district’ in the industrialised and neighbourhood, some east Austin residents flood-prone terrain of east Austin. asked for sustainable, affordable housing After raising their children on, or adjacent options that added density without compro- to, contaminated lands for 63 years, east mising the architectural integrity of their Austin community members organised to bungalow-lined streets. form PODER (People Organized in Defense It is in this context that the Alley Flat of the Earth and Her Resources) “to address Initiative (AFI) emerged as a collaboration the social, economic and environmental between three groups: the University of Texas impacts” of the polluting industries that dom- Center for Sustainable Development (UTCSD, inated the east side of the city (PODER, n.d.). a transdiciplinary research group based in Since 1991, PODER has shut down a major the School of Architecture), the Guadalupe power plant, relocated an oil depot and estab- Neighborhood Development Corporation lished an Overlay Ordinance to protect east (GNDC, a local not-for-profit housing pro- Austin from future threats of environmental vider) and the Austin Community Design and contamination. Development Center (ACDDC, a not-for- At about the same time on the other side of profit corporation committed to providing town, the Save Our Spring (SOS) Alliance was green design services to underserved commu- forming to protect the Barton Creek water- nities). Collectively, students, faculty, neigh- shed from the perils of development. Winding bourhood residents and activists recognised through the western part of the city, this three conditions of the existing development watershed includes Austin’s treasured Barton pattern in east Austin that added up to an Springs and large portions of the region’s opportunity. water supply, the Edwards Aquifer. After First, most residential neighbourhoods are months of passionate protests in protection of served by alleys and, although these alleys the watershed, Austin passed its now famous are no longer maintained by the city, they S.O.S. Ordinance, which limits impervious provide rear access to most residential lots. cover and prevents polluting development Secondly, most of these lots are large and practices in south-west Austin. underdeveloped from an urban perspective. Unfortunately, as east Austin residents And, thirdly, the Latino community, in par- fought to make their community a healthier, ticular, is land-poor—meaning that over more enjoyable place in which to live, the en- 70 per cent of long-term residents own their vironmentally inspired ordinances restricting property outright, but struggle to pay their development in the western side of the city taxes. Putting these three conditions together only fuelled the pressures of what Dooling and suggests that, according to existing zoning Greve (forthcoming) refer to as “ecological ordinances, there are as many as 3300 oppor- gentrification”—a pattern of development tunities for homeowners to insert ‘alley flats’ that would, in the name of environmental into their backyards. Whether we call them protection, displace minority communities be- ‘alley flats’, ‘granny flats’, ‘mother-in-law cause they cannot pay rapidly inflating taxes. apartments’, ‘dependencies’, ‘laneway houses’,
2634 STEVEN A. MOORE AND BARBARA B. WILSON or, more technically, ‘secondary dwelling ism. In the intervening century, conditions units’ or SDUs, the consequence is the same. have changed dramatically. With regard to Residents could leverage their home equity to electricity, energy prices have doubled and construct small, affordable houses for family redoubled and ‘line-losses’ from moving members or renters that would increase cash energy long distances over the grid have be- flow enough to pay inflating taxes and thus come unacceptable (Chiradeja, 2003). With avoid dislocation. regard to water, scarcity and degraded quality This simple idea relates to the concept of have altered our perspective of a once- sustainable development in two basic ways. abundant resource. Add to these conditions First, what people of modest means need the fact that the single largest cost to a public most is a way to reduce day-to-day expenses. electric utility is the pumping of water around Passive architectural design strategies and the city and it becomes easy to see that 20th- highly efficient technologies will help to century centralised infrastructure is a major accomplish this goal. Secondly, increasing obstacle in the project of sustainable urban residential density in existing neighbour- development (Andoh and Declerck, 1997). hoods avoids expensive and environment- Many engineering experts point to distri- ally damaging suburban sprawl elsewhere. buted infrastructure as an essential part Taken together, the team envisions that the of a sustainable future, but unfortunately opportunity to build a significant number few have been able to reframe pipes and of alley flats will be attractive to not only to wires as components of an integrated urban neighbourhood residents, but also to city system. Alley flats are, then, one dimension government and environmentalists on the of a sustainable approach to urbanism. Not other side of town. only would such small houses consume very Government and environmentalists tend to little energy in their own right, but they see affordable housing as units of consumption. would also produce electrical energy, collect Whether placed at the urban fringe, or in rainwater and filter run-off of storm-water. high-rise condominiums, such large numbers The net consequence is that neighbourhood of units generally require new schools, new infrastructure and municipal sustainability streets and the extension or upgrading of would be improved, rather than burdened by, water and electrical infrastructure, which is the development of affordable housing. both expensive and environmentally destruc- Reframing affordable housing and hard tive. NIMBYism, or not-in-my-back-yard, is infrastructure—pipes, wires and streets— (literally) the normal response. In contrast as part of a single system is, however, not to these development scenarios, the AFI enough. The soft infrastructure—mortgages, proposes to reframe affordable housing as insurance, ownership formats, etc.—is equally units of production. This can be accomplished important and typically consumes a high by conceptualising significant numbers of percentage of the homeowner’s resources small infill houses, not as places to warehouse dedicated to housing. Without integrating poor people, but as parts of a distributed hard and soft infrastructure into a single infrastructure system that respects and sup- housing delivery system, it is highly unlikely ports the existing neighbourhood. that affordability—meaning affordable to Traditional, or centralised infrastructure, families making 60 per cent or below local was developed at a time when energy was median family income—can be achieved. very inexpensive and little thought was given This claim is supported by the empirical to the kind of catastrophic system failure we experience of constructing the prototype now expect from hurricanes, floods or terror- 750 sf alley flat shown in Figure 6.
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