Building Codes, Coding Communities 2001

One hundred years after the adoption of the Tenement House Act of 1901, or "New Law," adequate housing, and therefore building codes, remain an issue for many New Yorkers. But few people outside of those whose profession requires it of them are familiar with the specifics of the building codes or the other legislative measures which regulate design and housing. CUP wishes to provide both an outline of the evolution of such legislation in the time since the enactment of the New Law and a discussion of the state of the code today in a form which will be accessible to those who do not have prior acquaintance with the code.
The installation has two portions:
Window #1: Over the course of the three-month installation period, a series of buildings will be displayed to illustrate specific legislative acts pertaining to housing and design. Each building will be presented individually for a period of two weeks through photographs and basic architectural drawings (plans, elevations). Each group of images were accompanied by a brief text discussing the historical context of the act in the evolution of codes, its functions, and the ways in which its effects can be read in the images of the building.
Windows #2 & #3: A series of interviews conducted with individuals from the design, development, administrative, and activist communities will be presented to provide a forum on the state of the code today. Each interview will be excerpted and displayed alongside a portrait of the interviewee. The interviewees will be selected with an eye towards representing not just differing ideological positions, but also varying levels of institutional involvement, in order to better understand how people of similar sentiments but dissimilar positions relate to one another.

Participants

Rosten Woo, Designer
Damon Rich, Designer
Jason Anderson, Designer

Downloads

Finding the Civic in the Situation (PDF, 809.4 KB)

A paper by Damon Rich on some of CUP’s techniques

Related projects

Building Codes, Coding Communities is a part of Building Codes, a series of projects that also includes
Important Housing Rights
The Programmable City