2.10 Evolution of Building Codes: From Ur to the Wildland Ur-ban Interface

“The rivers would shift their beds, inundations destroyed cultivated areas, sand dunes encroached on deserted villages within weeks – all factors that threatened the desire for permanence and anchorage to a place” Leick, 2001.

While we know not when codes first emerged, we do know that for as long as humans have recorded their thoughts in verbal and written verse, codes, both moral and technical, have been a feature thereof. Prior to the emergence of writing, codes were conveyed through the medium of storytelling. The message therein that if mortals behave in ways that displease almighty forces, be it a flood, eruption, plague and/or more, all [experiential] hell will break lose.

Inscribed on monumental stone tablets, the earliest written civic codes date to the Bronze Age. The earliest known, The Reforms of UruKAgina [University of Oxford, 2017], were scribed in Sumerian cuneiform in southern Mesopotamia during the Early Dynastic period [ED III], over four thousand years ago. The Code of Ur-Nammu, which was authored by the king of the Third Dynasty of Ur [Ur III], it being the city to which the birth of ur-banism is ascribed, is the earliest known extant civic code. However, the most well-known is the Code of Hammurabi [c.3.8ty], which scribed by the sixth Babylonian king, is representative of the distinctly biblical formula that both these, and other early civic codes followed. Topped and tailed with an epilogue and prologue in which its author praised divinities, including Marduk, the chief deity of Babylon, and his father Eu, the god of water, the code reads like commandments. Covering myriad aspects of civic-life, the Code of Hammurabi comprised 282 laws. Not to be taken lightly, punishments as were decreed to those that contravened its contents were severe, of which one example is as follows:

“If a fire break out in a man’s house and a man who goes to extinguish it cast his eye on the furniture of the owner of the house, and take the furniture of the owner of the house, that man shall be thrown into the that fire”. Code #25, Harper, 1904.

In a landscape as inherently dynamic as that of Mesopotamia, where, prior to the advent of agriculture and settlement peoples built temporary architectures, which not dis-similar to reed structures that are still made by Marsh Arabs today, migrated as inundations necessitated, the emergence of architectural and codification permanence [i.e. codes written ‘in stone’, not spoken] went hand in hand. The Urban Revolution, like all revolutions, was not merely one of practice, but of thought. Then, as now, ideas were expressed in both physical and virtual form. Indeed, even cities had the architectural equivalent of avatars, one city symbolic, the other administrative and residential, whereas others, such as Eridu, were simultaneously perceived in both their physical and metaphysical form, which in the latter’s case was the “site of creation” (Ibid, p. 29). Likewise, then, as now, the climate remained not in a state of stasis, thus, over time, shifting local, regional, and global regimes reduced the productivity of some city-states, while increasing that of others. Cities came and went. Peoples came and went. Hence, paradoxically, at epochal not human times scales, that perceived as ‘permanent’ was, in fact, impermanent.

“No timber shall be used in any wall of any building where stone, brick, cement concrete, or iron are commonly used, except inside lintels, as herein provided, and brace blocks not more than eight inches in length.” Smith, 1909.

Stepping, once again, forward from the Bronze to the Information age, now, as then, codes continue to be scripted, and, in the instance of civic codes, the medium thereof remains writing. However, whereas Mesopotamian codes typically featured a dozen or two building specifications, today their sum is typically several orders of magnitude greater. As relates to this study, and to the codes that regulate construction in the WUI of the western U.S., the International Building Code [IBC] (ICC, 2017a) the International Fire Code [IFC] (ICC, 2016), and the International Wildland Urban Interface Code [IWUIC] (ICC, 2017b), are among the International Code Council documents that are fundamental to the contents and framework thereof.

California, the foremost fire-prone region in the U.S., operates building codes so comprehensive that the fire code alone numbers some several hundred pages (CBSC, 2016; CBSC, 2018). One of several regional and municipal codes currently in operation in the U.S. (Moore and Wilson, 2013), and subject to an ongoing and open development process, the code is designed, among other things, to “provide minimum standards to increase the ability of a building to resist the intrusion of flame or burning embers projected by a vegetation fire” (CBSC, 2016, p.401). In acknowledgement of the heterogeneity of wildfire behaviour within the landscape, therein level of risk to property and life, the code operates in concert with the fire hazard severity zones designated under the California Public Resources Code (CLI, 2017), of which the risk variants are Moderate, High, and Very-High. Areas either designated the responsibility of state, or of local agencies, the code’s scope is extensive, covering topics as diverse as emergency planning and preparedness [i.e. evacuation and lockdown drills], fire service requirements [i.e. access roads, and water supplies], building services and systems [i.e. emergency and standby power systems], fire and smoke protection features [i.e. guards as prevent embers entering ventilation shafts], material specifications [i.e. fire-retardant finishes], fire protection systems [i.e. fire alarms and sprinklers], and means of egress [i.e. specifications for evacuation routes and features thereof].

In toto, the California Fire Code [CFC] sets out specifications for wide-ranging residential, civic, industrial, and commercial building types, from airport hangers to garages, farms to factories, lumber yards to marinas, hospitals to schools, and more. However, the foci of this thesis low-story residential homes in WUI areas, and more specifically, the material and information systems as are integral to the architectural thinking, practice, and codes thereof, and their relation to site [i.e. regional fire ecology], but a small portion of the CFC is relevant thereto. Hence, upon review of the latest CFC edition and revisions (CBSC, 2016; CBSC, 2018), as relates to the protection of human life upon the occurrence of a wildfire, and to all such matters as fall beyond the scope of this study [i.e. specifications as relate to positioning of fire lanes for fire trucks; location and distribution of water hydrants and tanks; storage of hazardous materials and power-supplies; and location and dimensions of emergency escape and rescue openings, such as corridors, doorways, and windows] it is proposed that which this thesis sets forth [i.e. its theoretical tenants and the codes developed therefrom] will operate in concert therewith.

Nonetheless, paradigmatically, this study, its findings, and the conclusions therefrom, are born of a position at odds with that of the CFC, and in turn the IBC, IFC, and IWUIC. Whereas the latter evolved from earlier codes as were scripted in an era in which it was assumed wildfire not merely superfluous to the functioning of ecological systems, but damaging thereto, the codes as scripted by this author have evolved from findings as assert the contrary. Thus, whereas the above stated codes, and the policies from which they stem have largely treated fire ecology as a footnote, this thesis not merely embeds the discipline thereof, but builds its thinking, its practice, and its codes thereupon, while in acknowledgement that, though approaching one in the same subject from different perspectives, we collectively seek the same outcome: saving lives, together with the integrity of the landscapes we, humanity, call ‘home’.

Read the Literature Review in full here.

The thesis is also available in PDF format, downloadable in several parts on Academia and Researchgate.

Note that figures have been removed from the digital version hosted on this site, but are included in the PDFs available at the links above.

Citation: Sterry, M. L., (2018) Panarchistic Architecture: Building Wildland-Urban Interface Resilience to Wildfire through Design Thinking, Practice and Building Codes Modelled on Ecological Systems Theory. PhD Thesis, Advanced Virtual and Technological Architecture Research [AVATAR] group, University of Greenwich, London.