Structural Building Codes and Communication Systems

Building codes contain both explicit and implicit provisions that help maintain minimum standards of building performance with which engineers must comply in structural design. One form of design knowledge encoding is the use of explicit and implicit requirements. Explicit requirements are also called prescriptive requirements, and implicit requirements are also referred to as objective-based requirements. Building codes should be minimum standards; designing to more rigorous standards to make a structure more economical and/or innovative is beyond the minimum. Codes should assist engineers in their designs and assist code officials in making sure the designs are safe. Assisting engineers beyond the minimum standards is outside the code. Design codes should be just explicit enough to define minimum standards, which should assist both engineers and code officials. One possible way to enhance the encoding/decoding process is to make full use of the three communication channels available; including the specification, the commentary, and a supplement.