abra, I am so glad you are home safe. Now when do you travel to the midwest so I can fill you in on flyover state practice law?

I posted on the ya got a firm? thread about the fact that the person who stamps the drawings is personally liable, as a practicing professional, in any claims arising from defective design. No corporate structure protection, you are personally liable. This means you can lose personal assets including your house if it is not held jointly by you and another person.

And I posted on architects smoking marijuana about the possibility of losing your license with a conviction of drug use, or even the possession of drug paraphernalia!

I don't think I'll be practicing in Indiana any time soon.

Also, the new trend in ADA-related civil rights and design is "Visitability". ADA and the Fair Housing Act do not apply to single-family homes, but the new trend is to ask for "visitability" in large residential developments, meaning that a person with a disability should not be prevented access to your home due to physical inaccessibility because this limits their ability to fully participate in neighborhood community activities.

This could be huge.

You can't build anything habitable within the floodplain of a river. Duh.

.

But also, building a levee along a river does not necessarily mean that the area behind the levee is no longer considered "wetlands", because the land and the river share a common underground aquifer. treekiller, wanna weigh in here?

Oops:

In Indiana, an architect is held liable/responsible for a building for ten years after the point of substantial completion.

However, if someone is injured or discovers a defect in the tenth year, they have two years to file a claim, so actual you are liable for 12 years after substantial completion.

Also, in Indiana, architects are allowed to file a mechanic's lien for unpaid fees, even if the owner does not proceed with construction of the project. This is not true in all states. but you only have 60 days from the date of the last time you performed work under your contract to file the lien.

I find this stuff fascinating, so I could go on and on - in fact, I think I will:

It is actually considered good protection to put the copyright symbol and your name on all your drawings. The drawings are considered "tools of service", but what is copyrighted in the idea contained thereon, so you as the architect own the idea and give the Owner a limited license to use the idea, typically spelled out in the contract as a one-time use. So if they take your drawings and build another house, they are committing copyright infringement!

Also, case law shows that taking another person's design and changing a few windows or the cladding material are not considered sufficient deviation from the original idea - so it's considered copyright infringement too.

Oh and if the Owner fires you, their license to use your idea is automatically revoked. This gets messy...

I also got a nifty little certificate.

indiana architect = pope benedict or mother teresa.
or a potential criminal.
i am going to ashland, ohio for christmas as usual. 1 hour south of cleveland. i love being christian on christmas, muslim on ramadan and jewish on hannukah. for the rest of the year i am a buddhist sympathiser, and occasional hindu. enough already. amen.

can you do a project in indiana if you are licensed in an other state?
you can do it in california, upon you ask a special permission from california architect's board.

You have to get reciprocity - you have to actually be licensed in Indiana, but the they grant reciprocity pretty easily - just paperwork and a fee.

if only architects were as minimally cool as dj's

everything lb said about indiana sounds about the same as kentucky. except in kentucky an architect is pretty much held liable/responsible for a building for the life of the building.

from the Code of Hammurabi


also:

If a man breaks down a wall of a house in an attempt to rob it (quite literally "breaking into") and is caught, his punishment will be to become sealed up inside the wall as a patch.

does indiana have architecture?

Excellent question, TED, and I'm afraid the answer is mostly "no".

Yikes, that bit about being sealed up inside a wall? ick.

think of the smell.

actually, the murat center, an old shriner temple in downtown indy, is pretty nice. and the downtown has the usual midwestern collection of wonderful 19th century boomtime buildings - those brick shell buildings with ornately sculpted terra cotta, stone, or brick facades.

good modern architecture is not absent in indiana, you just have to look for it. don't forget that columbus indiana is one of the most dense collections of big-name architecture anywhere. and new harmony indiana has meier's atheneum and the amazing roofless church by philip johnson. (imagine me saying amazing and philip johnson in the same sentence! i mean it.) some of graves early stuff - when he was still modern - is in indiana. there is actually a good amount to be found.

Au contraire.....

http://www.pbase.com/archetype/indiana

http://www.pbase.com/archetype/ball_state_university

Oui, c'est ca.

This article is making me giggle with despair: what passes for art in Indiana:

Head stolen off Garfield "statue".

Lest you think it was a bronze sculpture of President James Garfield, try again: it's a fiberglass rendition of the cartoon cat.



God I hate it here.

that was a jeff koons piece...

Yikes....sounds like Fiberglass Sculpture is where it is at in Indiana.

Aside from that Liberty, I can say my ancestors did have something to do with the Noblesville Court House. It was kinda cool to see it posted here.

hilarious. that article sounds like it belongs in The Onion:


the Garfield committee might discuss increasing security...

"You put so much energy and effort into a community project, then this happened"

oops...the image didn't show up previously...

went to a Psychobilly Cadillac show on Friday night and coulda sworn I heard him compare Indianapolis to hell....... Turned out to be a Bottle Rockets cover, and made me think of y'all so here's some lyrics for ya-----

Got a tow from a guy named Joe
Cost sixty dollars hope I don't run out of dough
Told me bout a sex offense 'put him three days in jail
Stuck in Indianapolis, hope I live to tell the tale

[Chorus]
Can't go west, can't go east
I'm stuck in Indianapolis with a fuel pump that's deceased
Ten days on the road now I'm four hours from my home town
Is this hell or Indianapolis with no way to get around

Called my girl to tell her of the trouble that I'd had
First time I called her in ten days, guess that made her mad
Far as she's concerned I belong in this Hoosier state
Stuck in Indianapolis with no way to set things straight

[Chorus]

Sitting in this bar is getting more than I can stand
If I could catch a ride I really think I'd ditch this van
Who knows what this repair will cost, scared to spend a dime
I'll puke if that jukebox plays John Cougar one more time

If I ever leave here I hope never to return
If I get that van back, Man, the road I'm gonna burn
Right now my future's in the hand of them boys down at Firestone
Stuck in Indianapolis feeling all alone

[Chorus]
Is this hell or Indianapolis with no way to get around