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Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

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Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#181
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could see a layperson like me thinking “yeah, thick concrete and fire doors; you’ll never need to fully evacuate”. I would expect architects, fire marshals, city planners, and other experts to see the obvious problem with this. Or at least one of them. It’a a single building. How do you build a plan around never needing to evacuate the place? It seems straightforward and appropriate to support a full evacuation str…

Apartment doors, walls and floors can withstand many hours of continuous burn. The building would never be on fire, at worst you’d have one apartment or one floors public areas on fire before it’s put out. If my apartment was on fire, no alarms would sound in the building, only within my apartment, it doesn’t matter to my neighbours. There’s certainly scenarios in which you might need to evacuate, like a bomb threat,…

> Apartment doors, walls and floors can withstand many hours of continuous burn.

24 stories of Grenfell were engulfed in an hour - the fire bypassed the doors, walls and floors, by going up the outside.

> The building would never be on fire

The entire building was on fire. 72 people died.

> The problem with Grenfell was that building regulations had been violated, at which point, all bets about safety are off.

Mistakes get made. Hence redundancy, like two staircases. If you're going to design for 'no mistakes ever made' then don't bother with any fire systems as a fire is a mistake in the first place.

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#182
For people commenting that it is worth to sacrifice living space for a little bit of security: do you live in the suburbs (in order to have more space) or do you live in a smaller apartment in the city (in order to have a shorter commute)?

The risk you avoid by reducing driving is much, much higher than the risk you avoid by having a second staircase in your building. People choose money/comfort over security all the time, but then act like making that choice is absurd and only a monster would do it.

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#183
post #6

If you want to save space maybe eliminate the parking lot/garage before you eliminate the extra staircase.

Wouldn't that make parking pretty annoying? Anecdotally, at least in SF, lack of parking options set a home's value back pretty far.

Maybe fewer people should have cars? Especially people in major urban areas like SF.

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The premium that you pay extra for the safety equipment in your car is likely more than 33%. We would have many new cars for 4-digit prices if not for the large number of safety systems required on cars.

Cars are designed to intentionally accelerate you to speeds that easily kill you, though, and carry along a vast amount of stored energy. Buildings are designed to stand still and generally not be flammable. The expected value calculations are seemingly quite a bit different.

> Cars are designed to intentionally accelerate you to speeds that easily kill you

And buildings in North America are often framed out of the same material that they burn in their fireplaces.

Both present inherent dangers. Both have widespread safety regulations for this reason.

Vehicle accidents are the 2nd leading cause of accidental death in the US and fires are 6th. And this is the result of many decades of both being highly regulated.

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#186
> North American multifamily building with nimbler designs from South Korea, China, Sweden, Italy, or Germany. In those countries, apartments in midrise buildings may be served by a single stair, often encircling or adjacent to the elevator

At least in China, this will be 180° opposite of what fire code says: a minimum of 2 staircases

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#187
post #148
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does in most places - concrete stairwells (typical) don’t exactly love fire. Sheetrock similar.

If an accelerant is used that is continuously burned until exhausted , then I'm not sure it matters where or what materials are present. If there is a fire at an exit that persists and is difficult to extinguish, said arsonist can then move to the next exit, and perform the same action. Thus blocking multiple exits while acting as a single individual. That's my point.

But hopefully the fire alarms are causing an evacuation and those using the other door will stop someone from going in

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are designed to intentionally accelerate you to speeds that easily kill you, though, and carry along a vast amount of stored energy. Buildings are designed to stand still and generally not be flammable. The expected value calculations are seemingly quite a bit different.

> Cars are designed to intentionally accelerate you to speeds that easily kill you And buildings in North America are often framed out of the same material that they burn in their fireplaces. Both present inherent dangers. Both have widespread safety regulations for this reason. Vehicle accidents are the 2nd leading cause of accidental death in the US and fires are 6th. And this is the result of many decades of both…

And I still find it surreal that people in world's richest country live in wooden houses.

People still die in scary numbers there no matter the regulations.

Cars can't be made safer anymore. 60Mphs frontal collisions have single digit percentage survivability chance because physics.

Homes can be made much safer by building them differently.

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars are designed to intentionally accelerate you to speeds that easily kill you, though, and carry along a vast amount of stored energy. Buildings are designed to stand still and generally not be flammable. The expected value calculations are seemingly quite a bit different.

> Cars are designed to intentionally accelerate you to speeds that easily kill you And buildings in North America are often framed out of the same material that they burn in their fireplaces. Both present inherent dangers. Both have widespread safety regulations for this reason. Vehicle accidents are the 2nd leading cause of accidental death in the US and fires are 6th. And this is the result of many decades of both…

Wood is one of the better materials if there is a fire. While it burns (a negative), it burns slow and gives plenty of warning before it fails. Most other building materials fail suddenly in a fire. Engineered wood has the same issues)

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#190
post #39

I live in a three bedroom ranch-style home and designed the floorplan myself. Every room save for my bathroom and my office has two egress routes and they all have windows. I’m sure a statistical analysis could be constructed to justify the decision to eliminate two stairwells. I wouldn’t be interested in living there.

Do you talked about the floor plan and the reasoning behind it somewhere?

It might be interesting.

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