Rules

Some people like to make blanket statements. This is always wrong. ALWAYS. That was irony, you can laugh. I'm talking here about statements like "Rules are meant to be broken". This particular blanket statement i'd like to dissect and, i hope, eventually disprove.

There are three ways to interact with rules. You can follow them explicitly (to the letter), you can follow them implicitly (the spirit of the rule) or you can break them outright. Each position has legitimacy, but (as always) context is crucial.

People often rail against following rules explicitly, but there are thousands of situations where it happens, and that's a good thing. Dicta about murder crop up universally, perhaps the most famous of which is "Thou shalt not kill". It's essentially illegal everywhere. It's quite black and white -- don't end someone's life. You can't half kill someone. There are, of course, gray areas even here -- is abortion murder, and what about animals? How is that different? I don't presume to be able to answer those questions, but i can say that it is the goal of modern governments to clarify those questions as much as possible, albeit through very different methodologies depending on the political schema. And i'm quite glad that we can all agree that killing me is not socially acceptable. I rather like living.

These prescriptive measures are also present in architect -ure. Some are universal, others are determined by the client. The capacity for an elevated floor to not-collapse is pretty much a given. But should it shield you from the elements? Well...probably. The natatorium at Cranbrook in Michigan is quite the counter-example. Those "windows" are glassless, and the colossal well of light in the ceiling opens directly to the sky. Then again, you don't have to sleep in a natatorium.

This is where the line blurs, and you have to follow the spirit of the rule. This can be tricky, because what you do might be technically illegal (or against the rule, when laws are not involved). To be responsible, you have to investigate the rationale behind the creation of the original rule. It is, as legend will have it, illegal to serenade your girlfriend in Kalamazoo, and Fox News reports that it's illegal to shower in the nude in Florida. I'm totally baffled by the latter, but i suppose the former may have caused a series of problematic public disturbances. It would certainly arouse my anger should men nightly approach my neighbor's house (all girls) and sing bawdy love ballads in the wee hours of the morning. The law was likely a knee-jerk reaction to a situation that got out of hand, and as such is worded much more generally than it ought to be.

Most laws aren't so absurd, though. The rolling-stop at stop signs is one of the most common complaints of police nit-picking. However, i see plenty of bikers barrel right through stop signs even when the intersection is crowded. It's just stupid...and dangerous, and it makes drivers less amicable to bikers on the roads. All around, you should pretty much just stop at stop signs.

And the previous comment about floors being built to not-collapse -- within that statement is the moral value not to injure people in your buildings. I happen to think that's rather important, but it might be less so if you're designing a trap door (every evil genius needs a trap door in front of his desk). Or if you're designing some kind of crazy plastic hamster-cage for kids (you know, the kind with all the the tiny plastic balls that little kids get lost in? Indoor playgrounds -- they go by a lot of names) maybe you actually WANT them to fall through the floor! Of course, you want them to do it safely -- safety and convenience are two good reasons for the no-collapse rule in the first place.

At the risk of sounding pedantic...
It's when you don't think about the rule you're breaking that passes into the realm of irresponsibility. You can even outright break rules completely if you think they're unjustly founded. Insurgents call this revolution, the RIAA calls it piracy, and parents call it teen angst. All these are legitimate forms of expression, equally valid with voting, i might even argue.

Now, this isn't to say that i think you need to study theory religiously in order to have a responsible practice, be it in architecture or any other field. That's not necessary. A working knowledge of theory is required, though, in order to be able to be aware of what direction your work is taking. Should you be a jazz musician, you may not be terribly interested in Baroque teaching methods. But you should be interested in blues, ragtime, and precedent, because it's directly related to your personal direction. Should you be a developer who claims to support the Arts & Crafts movement, you should probably consider how it arose from Art Nouveau and preceded Modernism. It's ALL about context. ALWAYS.