Housing and Community Development

Registered professional engineers, in Wisconsin, are also permitted to sign and seal building plans though they have not received any training in building design.  There are many that do and so are often responsible for a good share of the unarchitecture.  Here, the plans just need to get through building code plan review and whatever municipal commission has jurisdiction.  Authenticity, context and appropriateness are seldom concerns although traditionalistic styling typically is regardless of any rational application.  Most of this seems to be commodity work - "as much as possible for the lowest unit cost."  I think Illinois is one of the only states that requires an architect certification on plans for habitable buildings, but that might have a building size "floor" (such as, 50,000 cf or larger).  Are there others?

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Roger Retzlaff AIA
Berners-Schober Associates, Inc.
Green Bay WI
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Engineers signing off on buildings? Sure beats the heck out of no license or stamp at all!  We still need to pass "if it needs a permit, it needs a stamp" universally. Get that done first, worry 'bout the engineers if that's a problem later.