Construction Industry Trends
March 2005
Working With Standards: An Insider's Perspective
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Bruce Monighan is the founder of Monighan + Associates Architects, a full-service architectural firm based in Sacramento, California. The firm specializes in new and renovated buildings for retail, restaurants, and golf clubhouses, and has worked on projects around the world.
Q: How do standards affect your work?
Standards are probably the scary part of what we deal with. Building codes typically are for assembly — they take a holistic approach. But standards tend to be designed to describe a particular item or task. What makes standards tricky is that there are hundreds of thousands of them, so that it's hard to keep abreast of them. Architects and engineers are generalists when compared to manufacturers. Manufacturers know how the standards for their products work, but as architects, we're putting these elements together, and the danger is in not understanding how they affect each other. Endeavoring to make them work together is the design team's responsibility.
Q: How do you stay on top of all these standards?
We quite often reference hundreds of building standards — sheet metal, steel testing, concrete testing, and much more. I don't know of any architectural design offices that have copies of all the codes and standards they reference, and I think this really can be a potential landmine. I'm beginning to question whether it's appropriate to reference standards that we don't know or don't have copies of. Blindly referencing a standard you don't have full knowledge of or a copy of is simply dangerous. You could be wrong. And even if I do have good knowledge of the codes, I still have work being done by others in my office. We need to get it right down to the details — it's all about quality control. This has led us to put everybody in the office through code and legal liability seminars. I believe that training is probably the most critical element with this issue, and it's important that you don't overlook anybody.
Q: Are there challenges you face with building codes as well?
As you move around the country, you find different areas have different building standards and codes. While this is beginning to change as more regions move to adopt the International Building Code, you still see major municipalities that have specific code books. Even smaller municipalities have amendments of their own. It can be difficult to keep on top of all these different sets of codes.
You also have to deal with the interpretation of codes. One person can interpret it one way, and you can have your plans all approved, and then, when everything is built, a building inspector can come in and have a different interpretation. Unfortunately, it's incredibly difficult for owners to understand that code is open to interpretation. We've had several problems with change orders and owners not being happy about them, so now we put it in our contracts that we will have to charge for changes if the codes change or if the interpretations of them change. Also, codes change over time, so you have to make sure you're current.
Q: Since you have projects all around the country, how do you keep track of all the different types of codes?
We have a checklist, a nine-page list of questions we ask officials with the local jurisdiction, and part of that includes questions about the code. Questions such as what edition of the code are you on, what amendments are you using. While we probably do more research for projects in regions that are new to us, we still make sure to stay on top of the code in regions that are familiar to us. For example, here where we're located in downtown Sacramento, the area is small, but the codes can be dramatically different based on what part of the downtown area you're working in.
Q: Have you had a project in which you had code- or standard-related issues?
We had a project in San Jose that included an electrical room with an electrical panel that had more than 1,200 amps going through it. The code required two exits out of the room, so we developed the plans accordingly. The plans were approved, and the room was built according to the plans. But when it came time for the inspection, the building inspector said the exit doors weren't far enough apart. We couldn't find anything in the code that mentioned this, and he couldn't either — it was just his interpretation. In the end, we had to make major modifications that cost the client a lot of money.
Q: Are there other challenges you face with codes and standards?
One thing is the ADA —
the Americans with Disabilities Act. Most people think it's a building code, but it's not. It's a piece of civil rights legislation, but is often used as a building code. Unfortunately, it wasn't written by code officials, so there are lots of gray areas. In California, where there was already an accessibility code, there were a lot of conflicts between the ADA legislation and the code. Many of these have been ironed out, but in many states there is still a lot of conflict. I think that this great misunderstanding about ADA and how it interacts with building standards will be the biggest gray area for the next five to 10 years.