Building codes establish minimum requirements for safeguarding the public health, safety and welfare of occupants in the built environment. Codes are necessary because without them there is no universal baseline of understanding or reference to create safe environments with any predictability, process or governance.
The primary goal of building codes is to provide buildings that protect against the loss of life and property from fire and similar emergencies. The secondary goal is to establish guidelines that provide minimum standards and tolerances for the intended use and performance of buildings.
Building codes are a collection of regulations, standards and guidelines that govern the process and systems of building design. They encompass many volumes of books, each embracing a particular discipline, specialty or approach to the design process. Each code that is adopted by a federal, state or local agency becomes a document enforceable by law. Building codes are not a “fixed body of knowledge,” but rather a collection of evolving standards that change in response to new research, technology, product development, testing, information and actual occurrences of building failures, accidents and natural disasters.