as i design a new home for a client - I'm having to feed calculations into my fenestration designs. several architectural design Lego blocks have been removed from my design box and replaced with calculations and formula's.
the emotional design process i have become familiar with - is now replaced by an accountant like , militant butchering of the design. all this is fine if it really means im saving the planet.
now that this process has been written into our constitution , and all municipalities are enforcing it - my questions are - how did this process get so entrenched into our law, before 99% of architectural professionals even heard about it? and more worrying is what's ahead of us? only building products stamped with a certain stamp being used on south african building sites? does this immediately put thousands of small SA building business's out of work - window manufacturers , carpenters etc etc? will this favour a certain few and are billions of rands at stake for a very clever few?
yes regulations are very important - however to micro regulate one area of south africa's built environment - whilst turning a complete blind eye to another is hypocriticle at best. the final question is - what is the council of the built environment and the architectural regulatory bodies doing to bring south africa's informal settlements in line with the new regulations?
my perception at present is - architecture is dead - behold the rise of calcutecture
