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.

ARCHITECTURE WITHOUT CONSENT

Every first Monday of a month, I look at the marks architecture leaves behind — sometimes through what is built, sometimes through what is lost. This week’s mark is one of absence. The East Wing of the White House — a space steeped in history, ceremony, and civic symbolism — has been erased. What eventually rises in its place will not just be a new gilded ballroom, but a new question: what happens when architecture moves forward without democratic consent?

The Mark of Erasure

The White House has never been static. It has burned, been rebuilt, expanded, reinforced, and reimagined over two centuries — each transformation leaving its own architectural signature. Yet the recent demolition of its East Wing and the proposed privately funded ballroom rising in its place mark a rupture, not a continuation.

This is the mark of erasure — a physical void where a historic structure once stood, and a conceptual one where public voice has fallen silent. The East Wing was more than service corridors and offices; it was the connective tissue between the ceremonial and the domestic, the public and the private. To remove it without conversation is to edit history without annotation.

The Mark of Omission

For the first time in the modern era, a significant alteration to the architecture of the People’s House has proceeded without visible public or professional engagement. There were no open design discussions, no advisory reviews from the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, no national dialogue about what this change represents. The process unfolded quietly, swiftly, and underwritten by private wealth.

This absence is its own kind of mark — the mark of omission. The silence around this project speaks volumes about a shift in how power operates: architecture once used to symbolize democracy is now deployed to bypass it.

The Mark of Power

Architecture is never neutral. It encodes hierarchy, ideology, and values into form. When a building as symbolic as the White House changes shape, the act reverberates far beyond its walls. The East Wing’s demolition is not merely a spatial alteration — it is a statement about governance and authority: who holds the right to alter a national symbol, and whose vision that change serves.

Throughout history, even the most drastic White House renovations — from Truman’s total interior reconstruction to Roosevelt’s creation of the West Wing — involved architects, historians, preservationists, and public oversight. They were changes made through process, however imperfect. What distinguishes this moment is not the scale of construction but the erosion of transparency — the mark of power overtaking process.

The Mark of Patronage

The proposed ballroom, reportedly funded by wealthy businessmen, compounds the unease. Public architecture derives legitimacy from public trust. When a national monument is reshaped by private money, it shifts from civic representation to personal projection. The funding itself leaves the mark of patronage — a return to an older, pre-democratic model of building, when architecture served donors rather than citizens.

The White House, long an emblem of the collective, risks becoming an estate of the few. The very space meant to host the public narrative may soon echo with private applause.

The Mark of Memory

And then there is what remains — memory. Architecture is temporal; every renovation overwrites another, layering time into space. But when change comes without consent, memory becomes resistance. Photographs, drawings, and stories of the East Wing now hold what the structure no longer can: evidence of a public ethos. The mark of memory is fragile, yet it endures — a quiet archive of what once stood for inclusion, transparency, and civic participation.

The Mark This Monday Leaves

Architecture speaks in silences as much as in structures. When the conversation between government, architects, and citizens is muted, design stops being democratic — it becomes declarative. The mark this Monday leaves is a reminder that architecture, like democracy, depends on participation.

When we stop being invited into the process, we are no longer represented in the result.

And the White House — the most visible house of the people — can only remain so if it continues to bear the mark of our collective voice.

Blogpost Cover Image Credit - East Wing; view of East Elevation, circa 1985–1992 - Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, DC,WASH,134-207