MATERIALITY OF A BUILDING IS CODE, TOO

We often think of code in architecture as something abstract — a checklist of fire ratings, egress paths, and accessibility clearances.

But there’s another kind of code, one that speaks directly to the body, the land, and the climate: material.

Material is code, too.

And it’s time we start treating it that way.

What Are We Really Building For?

Architects are taught that our foremost responsibility is to ensure the health, safety, and welfare of the public.

It’s written into building codes, ethics guidelines, and design handbooks.

But I keep coming back to a deeper question:

What are we really building for — and for how long?

As flash floods, hurricanes, wildfires, and rising tides disrupt lives across the U.S., I’m struck by the disconnect between our codes and our materials.

Why do we speak of resilience in abstract terms while continuing to build with wood studs and gypsum board in regions repeatedly devastated by water, wind, or fire?

We wouldn’t accept seat belts made of cardboard in our cars.

So why are we okay with homes that buckle under the same storms that return every decade?

Materiality of a Home

A structure’s core and shell — its bones and skin — aren’t just aesthetic or budget-driven decisions. They are life-safety choices.

They determine whether a space survives, breathes, protects, or collapses. They define thermal comfort, structural integrity, water resistance, and even emotional security in times of crisis.

When flash floods drown neighborhoods, when hurricanes strip roofs to rafters, when wildfires turn towns to ash — the material story becomes painfully clear:

wood frame construction simply isn’t enough anymore.

Not in coastal zones. Not in floodplains. Not in wildfire belts.

Durability Is Safety

In architecture school, we often talk about “100-year buildings” — structures that stand the test of time both physically and culturally.

Yet this mindset rarely extends to the everyday home.

In the U.S., the dominant model for residential construction remains light wood framing — fast, inexpensive, and standardized.

But it’s also vulnerable.

To rot. To termites. To wind shear. To fire. To time.

Not all wood, however, performs the same way.

Heavy timber construction — using large, solid wood members like columns and beams — tells a different story.

When exposed to flames, its outer layer chars, forming a protective barrier that insulates the core. This slow, predictable burn rate means the structural core often remains intact far longer than steel, which can lose strength rapidly under heat.

Beyond fire, heavy timber offers mass, thermal stability, and longevity. Its volume resists warping, absorbs and releases moisture gradually, and regulates interior temperature through natural insulation. It’s a material that breathes with its environment — and ages gracefully within it.

Light-frame homes may meet code, but they don’t necessarily meet the moment — a moment defined by climate volatility and recurring disaster.

Durable materials — whether reinforced concrete, precast panels, masonry, structural steel, or heavy timber — have long been proven in seismic zones, flood-prone regions, and dense urban cores.

The question is not whether they work, but why we aren’t using them more widely, especially in housing where the stakes are personal and perpetual.

The Cost Question

The answer, of course, is cost — or at least, perceived cost.

Wood framing is cheap to install, fast to assemble, and deeply embedded in American building culture. Developers prioritize margins. Municipalities prioritize code minimums. And homeowners often don’t know what questions to ask.

But initial cost shouldn’t be the only metric.

What about life cycle value?

What about the cost of rebuilding, again and again, after every storm season?

Yes, concrete emits carbon.

But so does rebuilding entire subdivisions every time a hurricane levels stick-built homes.

Shouldn’t we be calculating the environmental cost of repeated loss?

Is “cheap” construction really affordable if it has to be replaced every decade?

Code Is Not Enough

Building code should be the floor — not the ceiling.

It tells us what we’re allowed to do, not what we ought to do.

The climate is changing.

Our material habits must evolve with it.

As architects and designers, we are responsible not just for meeting code, but for reading context — climate, geography, time, and memory.

And in the face of rising sea levels, record-breaking heat waves, and billion-dollar weather disasters, material choices are no longer aesthetic or economic preferences.

They are ethical decisions.

What if we began to treat materiality as a civic duty?

What if we honored the land by building for its cycles — not against them?

Building for Generations

We admire centuries-old structures for their endurance — their ability to stand as testaments to both material and cultural longevity.

We must start holding our homes to the same standard.

If we value sustainability, care, and cultural continuity, our buildings should be designed not for the duration of a mortgage, but for generations.

Because every material we choose doesn’t just support a structure —

It tells a story.

It carries memory.

Durable homes are sustainable homes.

They are safer, more equitable, and more resilient homes.

They speak to a future that values care over convenience.

So What Can We Do?

As architects, designers, and citizens:

🚩 Advocate for stronger material standards in vulnerable zones.

🚩 Educate clients about the long-term value of durable construction.

🚩 Question when “value engineering” starts to mean “short-term thinking.”

🚩 Design for repair, not just replacement.

Let’s Build Like the Land Matters

Architecture Speaks Volumes is founded on the belief that design is not just shelter — it’s storytelling.

It holds memory, intention, and presence.

When we choose materials with integrity — when we design with durability, context, and care — we’re not just protecting buildings.

We’re protecting lives.

We’re protecting the stories those lives carry.

Let’s build with care.

Let’s build with memory.

Let’s build like the land matters.

Because material is code, too.

And we have the tools to choose better.

Concrete, Stilled: Tactile Encounters at the Pulitzer Foundation

There are buildings that impress, and then there are buildings that quiet you. The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in St. Louis — designed by Tadao Ando — is the latter. I visited it not for spectacle, but for stillness. Ando gave me both.

The architecture doesn’t scream. It breathes. And its primary language is concrete.

The Weight of Silence

The moment I stepped inside, the world slowed. What struck me first wasn’t the form or function — it was the weight of the quiet. Ando’s concrete isn’t brutish or cold. It’s monastic. Still. Thoughtful.

Each ply-formed surface reads like a fossilized imprint of craft — a record of time, pressure, labor, and intention. The material holds memory in its grain. It receives light in a way that feels deeply human.

Concrete as Skin

This isn’t the concrete of parking garages and freeways. This is concrete made tactile — not to be touched, but to touch you.

In the Pulitzer’s galleries and corridors, the concrete walls glow under filtered daylight, their surfaces softened by shadow. The edges are precise, but the experience is sensory. I didn’t just see the concrete. I felt it in the way it held space.

It reminded me that materiality is not just a question of aesthetics or durability — it’s an emotional register. A medium of mood.

A Material Lesson

As a designer, I’m always looking for how materials speak. At the Pulitzer, the concrete didn’t shout. It whispered. It invited stillness. Reflection. Reverence.

Ando’s approach reaffirmed something I return to again and again in my own work: the power of restraint. That space doesn’t always need to explain itself. Sometimes, it just needs to hold you — gently, firmly, silently.

Closing Reflection

Tactile Tuesday is about more than surface. It’s about experience. And this one stayed with me.

“You don’t touch the concrete — not literally. But it touches you.”

— Architecture Speaks Volumes

Have you visited a space that made you feel something — not for how it looked, but how it held you? I’d love to hear.

Leave me a comment on instagram → @architecturespeaksvolumes