Alex Ely Visits A Show That Challenges An Ever Expanding Set Of Building Regulations

摘要

Under the Town Police Clauses Act 1847, it is an offence to beat or shake a carpet, rug or mat in any street, and to keep any pigsty at the front of any street. This is just one of 35,000 unrepealed acts on the statute book. The job of repealing obsolete laws is an infinite one, not helped by legislators churning out over 3,300 statutory instruments every year. We are a risk-averse culture, always adding to rules rather than editing them, and the Architecture Foundation's new exhibition, The Rule of Regulations curated by Finn Williams with David Knight, tackles this tendency.rnConstruction law may account for a relatively small number of the statutes in the UK, but, by the time we combine acts, regulations, policies and standards, it doesn't seem like it. Lifetime Homes, a voluntary adopted standard introduced in 1991, has been integrated unedited into other standards such as the Code for Sustainable Homes,rndespite seven out of the 16 requirements now being part of the Building Regulations. The Building for Life standard, which first appeared in 2003 as a ready-reckoner to current planning policy guidance, is now added to the policies that it summarises.