Code compliance has led to more expensive buildings and a view that building codes restrain and burden architecture. This project proposes that building codes, rather than being a burden, have the potential to produce new economies and programs by focusing on the way codes organize circulation and interaction.
A process that shifts the conceptual approach to code compliance begins with using codes as a starting point or trigger.
Here the trigger that catalyzes change is the firewall.
A thickened firewall splits the building into 5 “sub-buildings” with their own building code designations, programs, building types, material assemblies, and structural systems.
Yet all “sub-buildings” are supported by a hyper-compliant core of services provided by this thickened firewall.
In addition to a fire barrier it provides egress, active systems chases for plumbing MEP and HVAC.
Hyper-compliance creates new architectural possibilities by investing in a core of services and unburdening programmatic spaces from anything but spatial and phenomenal experience.
