“If our food and drink don’t meet your standards, please lower your standards” – Chevy’s Restaurant Graffiti
Today is the 39th annual World Standards Day. Every year on World Standards Day, the international community celebrates the importance of standards-related activities and pays tribute to the collaborative efforts of the thousands of individuals that give of their time and expertise to this important work that benchmarks products, services and activities ensuring our quality of life is ever on the rise. A world without standards would soon grind to a halt. Transport and trade would seize up. The Internet would simply not function. Hundreds of thousands of systems dependent on information and communication technologies would falter or fail - from government and banking to healthcare, air traffic control, emergency services, disaster relief and even international diplomacy. Nearly all aspects of the modern world are heavily dependent on standards.
The date, October 14th was chosen because it was on that day in 1946 that delegates from 25 countries first gathered in London and consequently decided to create a new international organization dedicated to the coordination and unification of standards work. The International Organization for Standardisation (ISO) was officially formed one year later and it was at the prompting of an ISO President that the first World Standards Day was celebrated on October 14th, 1970. Since that time the spirit of collaboration embodied by World Standards Day has expanded to include its celebration by members of ISO, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). A variety of unique activities are devised by national accreditation bodies and participants in the international community, to commemorate World Standards Day.
The work of the ISO, the IEC and the ITU in developing international standards opens up markets but also brings environmental protection, safety, security, health and access to information and knowledge. Increasingly international standards are helping to break down the barriers between rich and poor nations. Standardisation helps provide higher quality at lower costs by ensuring that competition exists between vendors. It makes it easier for consumers to make an informed choice about equipment or services that they buy.
Ultimately, the goal of World Standards Day is to raise awareness of the importance of international standardization to the world economy and to promote its role in helping meet the needs of all business sectors. A specific theme for World Standards Day is selected annually by ISO, IEC and ITU. In 2008, "Intelligent and sustainable buildings" has been chosen for the 39th World Standards Day. The poster for 2008 World Standards Day above has been added to a design for a “green” building designed by Mithun and planned for downtown Seattle. This building design has won the Cascadia Region Green Building Council's Living Building Challenge: To create a building that functions like an organism, with apartments, a restaurant that utilizes food grown on site, and that is fully self-sufficient.
Cascadia Region Green Building Council, the purveyors of the Living Building Challenge, applauds Mithun for their thoughtful and provocative conceptual design of the Center for Urban Agriculture. Indeed, this project was recognized in a charrette competition at the Living Future unConference in 2007. However, it is a misnomer that the project “won” the living Building Challenge – only projects that prove to meet all 16 prerequisites after at least a full year of occupancy may be certified.
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