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Have our design codes and standards become increasingly prescriptive over time? My hypothesis is yes, but I have not found any [quality] studies that substantiate this belief.
I have been contemplating the push for additional certification in the case of structural engineers. I wonder if there's a connection between this push and the growth of a more prescriptive design environment. A hypothesis is that we have eroded the art of engineering via analysis and design software, which required a high level of prescription to be effective.

Mitch

You are correct that our codes an standards have become increasingly prescriptive with time.  This can readily been seen by comparing the volumes of present codes and historic one.  The 1927 Uniform Buidling Code had a total of 156 pages (pages were 5" x 7") that covered all things structural including: loading, concrete, masonry, steel, wood and foundations.  The code was all inclusinve - there were no references to industry standards (AISC, ACI, etc).  Today, the IBC now contains nearly 400 pages of structural requirements (and commentary) in 8-1/2x11 format adn also references many industry standards, each several hundred pages in length.

Our reliance on automated tools to perform design has facilitated and enabled this, but is not the primary cause.  There are several reasons for the increasing prescription of the building codes.  One is that have many more structural systems available to us than we did in the 1920s.  Another is that there is constant desire to design structures economically, and cut the inherent factor of safety in our designs - this requires more precise calculation of both loads and capacities.  A third reason is that code-writers are constantly seeing things that one or more engineers did wrong, and immediately write rules (prescriptions) to tell other engineers not to do the same thing.

At a National Steel Constuction Conference, back in 2005, I presented a talk on code complexity entitlted "Simple but no simpler"  This was a play on a comment by Albert Einstein that everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.  I argued that every engineer, architect and developer wants buidlings that are simplet to design and building, economical and safe . You can have any two - if you want it safe and simple, it won't be cheap- If you want it safe and cheap, it won't be simple, and if you want it simple and cheap it won't be safe.  As a profession we have opted for safe and cheap.

Have our design codes and standards become increasingly prescriptive over time? My hypothesis is yes, but I have not found any [quality] studies that substantiate this belief.
I have been contemplating the push for additional certification in the case of structural engineers. I wonder if there's a connection between this push and the growth of a more prescriptive design environment. A hypothesis is that we have eroded the art of engineering via analysis and design software, which required a high level of prescription to be effective.

Mitch

You are correct that our codes an standards have become increasingly prescriptive with time.  This can readily been seen by comparing the volumes of present codes and historic one.  The 1927 Uniform Buidling Code had a total of 156 pages (pages were 5" x 7") that covered all things structural including: loading, concrete, masonry, steel, wood and foundations.  The code was all inclusinve - there were no references to industry standards (AISC, ACI, etc).  Today, the IBC now contains nearly 400 pages of structural requirements (and commentary) in 8-1/2x11 format adn also references many industry standards, each several hundred pages in length.

Our reliance on automated tools to perform design has facilitated and enabled this, but is not the primary cause.  There are several reasons for the increasing prescription of the building codes.  One is that have many more structural systems available to us than we did in the 1920s.  Another is that there is constant desire to design structures economically, and cut the inherent factor of safety in our designs - this requires more precise calculation of both loads and capacities.  A third reason is that code-writers are constantly seeing things that one or more engineers did wrong, and immediately write rules (prescriptions) to tell other engineers not to do the same thing.

At a National Steel Constuction Conference, back in 2005, I presented a talk on code complexity entitlted "Simple but no simpler"  This was a play on a comment by Albert Einstein that everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.  I argued that every engineer, architect and developer wants buidlings that are simplet to design and building, economical and safe . You can have any two - if you want it safe and simple, it won't be cheap- If you want it safe and cheap, it won't be simple, and if you want it simple and cheap it won't be safe.  As a profession we have opted for safe and cheap.

Have our design codes and standards become increasingly prescriptive over time? My hypothesis is yes, but I have not found any [quality] studies that substantiate this belief.
I have been contemplating the push for additional certification in the case of structural engineers. I wonder if there's a connection between this push and the growth of a more prescriptive design environment. A hypothesis is that we have eroded the art of engineering via analysis and design software, which required a high level of prescription to be effective.

Mitch

You are correct that our codes an standards have become increasingly prescriptive with time.  This can readily been seen by comparing the volumes of present codes and historic one.  The 1927 Uniform Buidling Code had a total of 156 pages (pages were 5" x 7") that covered all things structural including: loading, concrete, masonry, steel, wood and foundations.  The code was all inclusinve - there were no references to industry standards (AISC, ACI, etc).  Today, the IBC now contains nearly 400 pages of structural requirements (and commentary) in 8-1/2x11 format adn also references many industry standards, each several hundred pages in length.

Our reliance on automated tools to perform design has facilitated and enabled this, but is not the primary cause.  There are several reasons for the increasing prescription of the building codes.  One is that have many more structural systems available to us than we did in the 1920s.  Another is that there is constant desire to design structures economically, and cut the inherent factor of safety in our designs - this requires more precise calculation of both loads and capacities.  A third reason is that code-writers are constantly seeing things that one or more engineers did wrong, and immediately write rules (prescriptions) to tell other engineers not to do the same thing.

At a National Steel Constuction Conference, back in 2005, I presented a talk on code complexity entitlted "Simple but no simpler"  This was a play on a comment by Albert Einstein that everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.  I argued that every engineer, architect and developer wants buidlings that are simplet to design and building, economical and safe . You can have any two - if you want it safe and simple, it won't be cheap- If you want it safe and cheap, it won't be simple, and if you want it simple and cheap it won't be safe.  As a profession we have opted for safe and cheap.

Have our design codes and standards become increasingly prescriptive over time? My hypothesis is yes, but I have not found any [quality] studies that substantiate this belief.
I have been contemplating the push for additional certification in the case of structural engineers. I wonder if there's a connection between this push and the growth of a more prescriptive design environment. A hypothesis is that we have eroded the art of engineering via analysis and design software, which required a high level of prescription to be effective.

Have our design codes and standards become increasingly prescriptive over time? My hypothesis is yes, but I have not found any [quality] studies that substantiate this belief.
I have been contemplating the push for additional certification in the case of structural engineers. I wonder if there's a connection between this push and the growth of a more prescriptive design environment. A hypothesis is that we have eroded the art of engineering via analysis and design software, which required a high level of prescription to be effective.

Have our design codes and standards become increasingly prescriptive over time? My hypothesis is yes, but I have not found any [quality] studies that substantiate this belief.
I have been contemplating the push for additional certification in the case of structural engineers. I wonder if there's a connection between this push and the growth of a more prescriptive design environment. A hypothesis is that we have eroded the art of engineering via analysis and design software, which required a high level of prescription to be effective.

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Mitch Winkler P.E., M.ASCE
Houston, TX
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Have our design codes and standards become increasingly prescriptive over time? My hypothesis is yes, but I have not found any [quality] studies that substantiate this belief.
I have been contemplating the push for additional certification in the case of structural engineers. I wonder if there's a connection between this push and the growth of a more prescriptive design environment. A hypothesis is that we have eroded the art of engineering via analysis and design software, which required a high level of prescription to be effective.

This discussion, sparked by the broader question about the necessity for SE licensure, has been particularly insightful in how the structural engineering profession has evolved and where we find ourselves today. What's come to light is we have a highly-evolved design practice that achieves safe outcomes while minimizing owner costs through the sophistication of our design codes. This design practice has come at the expense of complexity to the code and incumbent knowledge and expertise to apply the code reliably and consistently. In a way, we have become victims of our success, and returning to a less perspective environment is probably impossible. As appealing as performance-based requirements sound, this approach would impose a difficult hurdle for project approval as it does not fit into a simple check-the-box rubric. Putting the genie back in the bottle would be hard, if not impossible. Circling back to the question of SE licensure, the driver for SE licensure for me is starting to feel more about what we are asked to do as structural engineers – safe and cheap – more than anything else. As to the question of prescribing where SE licensure is required, I wonder if the boundary is more about structure scale and loading type than the structure's type or intended use. Smaller structures can accommodate some conservatism without appreciably increasing the owner's overall cost. The cost of conservatism is less tolerable for taller and heavier buildings as the added cost is magnified many times over versus a smaller structure. As we "sharpen our pencil" to wring out conservatism, we have little room for error in achieving a safe, as we define it, design, ergo, a driver for enhanced licensure for these building types.

Have our design codes and standards become increasingly prescriptive over time? My hypothesis is yes, but I have not found any [quality] studies that substantiate this belief.
I have been contemplating the push for additional certification in the case of structural engineers. I wonder if there's a connection between this push and the growth of a more prescriptive design environment. A hypothesis is that we have eroded the art of engineering via analysis and design software, which required a high level of prescription to be effective.