A Fascinating Analysis of the Cultural Impact of the Building Code

So the last couple of posts seem to have struck a bit of a nerve. Evidently there’s a lot of people out there with a strong interest in the Arts, venues and programming.

One of the things that comes up in these conversations is exactly where the new and experimental content would incubate before it reaches the point of being suitable for the Festival Centre or before it’s creators start working with major flagship Arts organisations. Because those organisations are flagships and their point is to, well, flagship the Arts, not incubate it.

Traditionally, this is the role served by small venues – and it’s notable that a lot of the responses focused on the role of micro and unfunded venues and companies in producing work described as ‘edgy’ and ‘new’. The traditional path would generally be for new work – in whatever medium – to exhibit in those unfunded venues and the best of it to then filter upwards to the flagships, bringing its audience with it.

The problem is that the lack of small venues, whilst having a colossal impact on the Arts, extends far beyond the boundaries of any Arts related organisation. The reason we don’t have more small cultural venues isn’t because of Arts policy or funding so much as because of seemingly unrelated things. Like the Building Code of Australia, zoning and planning regulations, liquor licensing and urban planning. Short of ArtsSA suddenly having a massive budget for building compliance and upgrades, the issue of venues is simply too far outside of their parameters.

Let me illustrate that with a long winded example.

Renew Australia’s Marcus Westbury has an interesting post up here about approaching cities from a ‘software’ perspective. He makes a point quite a few of us have made – that most people involved in planning and designing cities are ‘hardware people’ – their focus is on the built environment. Thus, there’s strong debate about things like the riverfront development, the use of Adelaide Oval, the new hospital, the height of buildings and provisions within the Building Code to pressure builders to make buildings that are safe, environmentally friendly and accessible. But, Marcus writes:

Cities are also software – they actually have many layers of software. They have an operating system – a hard set of rules and constraints that are imposed and enforced by governments. Operating systems are hard boundaries too – they are laws that forbid and allow. They define what you can and can’t do as much as the hardware does. Far from open to opportunities, the operating systems of cities are often defensive, risk averse and closed to possibility.

The key example of that is the Building Code of Australia (BCA). It’s a piece of federal software which shapes the state’s building regulations, council zoning and planning, any construction or alterations to buildings and, ultimately, what’s allowed to happen in what buildings.

Most of you who know me will have heard my laborious descriptions of how the intersection between the BCA, the federal Disability Discrimination Act, liquor licensing and local council regulations impacts on small cultural venues. What you get from those things is a nightmare of legislation and regulation comparable to getting Microsoft Office for Mac to work on a 1992 Nintendo Entertainment System. Activity that is culturally focused, and has outcomes that aren’t primarily about capital, completely baffle the software of a city.

Like most pieces of software, the Building Code shows the thumbprint of its designer and that thumbprint carries with it a particular set of rules about how the system as a whole operates. Also like most pieces of software the actual code is so dull that no one ever reads it.

You know how computer nerds complain about how Microsoft sucks because their software is, in comparison to Lunix, poorly structured and obviously designed by a guy who didn’t care all that much about community consensus so much as making bucket loads of cash? Well, the Building Code is a lot like something designed by Bill Gates. It’s designed to monitor the behaviour of major building companies and the kind of people who use buildings to make lots of money, by selling things like alcohol and white goods. It’s not designed for people who want to go into a building with no capital, paint the walls white and host a gallery opening.

Like all great pieces of hegemony, it’s so entrenched as a piece of accepted ‘common sense’ no one really seems to want to argue about it. Whatever its faults, it has the benefit of being described as “That’s just how it is” and “It’s too hard to fix.”

There’s a great example of this on Franklin Street. Someone’s finally opening a bar in the old Geoffrey Reed Communications building. Good for them – that street needs more activity on it.

I know that building because Tuxedo Cat tried to open up in there last year. They got to the point of having Council come through, whereas they were told they would need:

(1) A Class 9B Building Use classification – or the use designated for ‘places of public assembly’ – basically places where the prime purpose is the gathering of people, rather than the buying of products. Any theatre, gallery, hall or place where people gather is a Class 9B. Infamously, Class 9Bs don’t differentiate between the Entertainment Centre and a 50 person gallery with shows once a month.

(2) A Special Circumstances liquor license, which would only be granted to them if they had a Class 9B.

So why did Tuxedo Cat end up moving into a gutted, derelict building with no power, no water, no windows and a colony of pigeons who obviously have very roughage heavy diets?

Because for some reason the software of the city told them it was impossible to put a theatre into the GRC building because of something to do with the Building Code of Australia, the Disability Discrimination Act of 1992, state liquor licensing and local regulations. Ostensibly, the excuse given was that you couldn’t run a space exhibiting performance or art in that building because not all three floors were wheel chair accessible and there were no disabled toilets.

Notably, councils uniformly define ‘disability access’ (not just in Adelaide, but everywhere) almost exclusively as ‘wheelchair access’. I’ve never seen them present strategies for enhancing access to the vision or hearing impaired, or objecting to the use of fluro lighting for its negative impact on those with Epilepsy, or pressuring for event programs to include venue access specs or any of the other things that fall under the blanket term of ‘disability’. It’s purely about wheelchair access.

So a year later, after a vacancy of about five years, the building has finally been leased. And there’s a great big liquor licensing application sign on the front window, advising what the building will be used for:

Note the bit that reads:

‘To sell liquor for consumption on the licensed premises to persons who are about to or are in the process of or who have played a video game or who are accompanying those persons or persons viewing a video game.

Trading hours from 8AM to 5AM.’

This is where I get confused. What this sign is telling us is that the building can be used for people to stand around and stare at computer screens (provided those computer screens have video games on them). And they can drink whilst doing that from the hours of 8AM until 5AM.

But they can’t go there to watch theatre, or see a gallery exhibit or watch local music. Because, thanks to the nature of the building, it breeches the Disability Discrimination Act.

Really? The purpose of the Disability Discrimination Act as it intersects with Class 9B building use is to ensure access to cultural activity to all Australians, regardless of the impact of mental or physical disability on their lives. So how did it end up doing the exact opposite for the old GRC building? It didn’t produce access to culture for those discriminated against by poor building design. It stopped it very everyone.

If the building had been used for a theatre, it could have been done with the stipulation that all performances used the ground floor, or at least did some of their shows on the ground floor so all the content was 100% accessible at some point. There could have been a stipulation that longer term use hinged on the installation of disability toilets – which you can pressure the landlord to install if you’re signing leases of more than a couple of years. And there are disability toilets within a couple of hundred metres in the mean time – about the same distance you’d have to go if you were in the main stadium of the Entertainment Centre. So it’s not perfect, and it might have taken a couple of years to get the venue up to full access, but given the absence of small venues the overall increase in access to locally produced culture – both for artists and punters – would have increased substantially.

But that didn’t happen. Instead, the building stayed empty for another year and now you can go there to drink and watch screens.

Which is great. Drinking and staring at screens is excellent. But don’t we want more small venues? Every ‘arts’, ‘vibrant cities’ and ‘laneways’ related strategic plan I see seems to highlight the need for more small venues as a lynch pin of an engaged, socially and economically sustainable city. Both state and local government have produced reports highlighting the lack of cultural venues in South Australia.

So why isn’t that building an arts venue? The software of the city couldn’t handle it. It involved bridging federal, state and local government laws and regulations. It involved a crossover of support from multiple agencies and departments (substantial credit is due to the government representatives who did get involved, namely Alex Reid from ArtsSA, Lord Mayor Stephen Yarwood and Christie Anthoney from AC Arts). Again, it was like trying to get Microsoft Word for Mac to play on an old Nintendo.

It’s an issue that goes across systems, yet can’t be fixed or even understood by any single system. To alter it, you’d need to get too many agencies, departments, levels of government and skill sets to work together cohesively to substantially alter the software that impacts on our cities.

Thus, the place stayed empty for another twelve months, Tuxedo Cat ended up temporary lodged in a gigantic, empty building, which cost them tens of thousands to set up and will shut down when Aspen needs to begin their redevelopment. And, whatever your access requirements, there’s still hardly any venues in which to present your work or watch other locally produced content.

On the upside, there is another place where you can watch a screen and drink from 8AM to 5AM.