Page 110 - DP-2-3

Design+ Building code app benefits for designers

Table 4. (Continued)
Parameters/questions Themes Codes Example
Functional “There’s not necessarily specific codes, but there are sort of strategies and space
Spaces planning operations that work better, and they function better.”
User-centered “How do people use them on a day-to-day basis, so sort of like user-centered
design or human-centered design?”
Site Visit “They visit the site, so they walk into the doors of the building that they’re
going to be doing the renovation on.”
Feedback “Invite professionals to come and, like, give feedback to the students.”
Frustrating teaching Teaching Need for guidance “We incrementally, sort of spoon feed them, in some ways, the code that
experience methods they’re learning and the code that is applicable to the project types that we set
up for them.”
Relatable learning “When you teach it as a way to keep people safe, and you connect it in ways
that they’ll remember to what it is you’re trying to accomplish, then they see
purpose in it.”
Challenges Complicated “It is kind of a complicated document, especially since the concrete code is
written in a way that it’s not easy to navigate... I think it’s a very complicated
code.”
Cost “The expense of the codes that you know I require for these classes, and they
are expensive documents.”
Intimidating “The International Building Code is a very intimidating document.”
Lack of interest “Students think it’s kind of boring, they don’t know how important it is, and all
the clearance and all the numbers, they are not interested. So, I think it’s really
important to make them, make them interested in these issues.”
Overwhelming “Helping the students overcome that sense of feeling overwhelmed., something
that I found to be frustrating.”
Frustrating students’ Inexperience “I think that the maturity of the architect comes into play; this is very
learning experience frustrating for them, because they don’t have either the maturity or they don’t
have the years of practice that help them navigate that gray area.”
Intimidating “It’s intimidating, it’s a lot, and to learn how to teach them what’s important for
them to know without overwhelming them.”
Complexity “I think that sometimes they don’t know exactly where to start, and you have
to kind of give them a roadmap to help them break it down into, you know,
some incremental categories and pieces to make it more manageable for them.”
Memorization “So, the frustrating part, I guess, is when they only think of it as rules that they
have to memorize, and they don’t want to memorize any rules.”
Textbook Organization “They have expressed the same frustration with the concrete code that I have
and its organization.”
Difficulty relating “They don’t realize how big the space is, how that clearance will work for the
to real-world wheelchair users, because they don’t have that kind of disability, they do not
situations have any experience.
Looked up building code Code app “I have not looked up anything. I don’t have any familiarity with any sort of
apps unfamiliarity apps that might be available, if there are any.”
Online websites “I always just end up going back to the building code websites.”
Plugins “I know for BIM, there have been some attempts to do like once you design a
building, to have these applications, like these plugins that will tell you when a
corridor is too long or a dead-end corridor.”
Videos “I found a few things on YouTube that I kind of like, so I actually have a little
cheat sheet of my favorite YouTube places.”
Code book “We also had kind of like a code guidebook or a code to reference book.”
Steel code app “I do have one app on my phone for the steel code.”
(Cont'd...)

Volume 2 Issue 3 (2025) 14 doi: 10.36922/DP025190025