211–220 of 309 posts
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The standard is "Safety regulations are written in blood." That's short enough and better than indirectly referring to it via a named 'law'.
The regulations are not evidence based, they are outrage based though :/
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> 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. Mistak…
The correct approach is to design for the biggest common mistakes, not for all mistakes ever. We already do this for floods, earthquakes, wind load, etc.
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If you want a deep deep dive into how parking has shaped our cities - I would recommend reading about the “high cost of free parking” and “parking minimums”. https://blog.getmyparking.com/2019/07/01/why-parking-minimum...
Right but the cities are already there. We don't have the luxury of redefining the American lifestyle and dependence on cars with a single unit of new housing. There's no benefit for the developer - leaving out parking (aside from the mandate to include it) makes the property less desirable.
A staircase takes up about the plan size of one bedroom. If that's too much, you're probably trying to cram too many people into a building. There's efficiency, and then there's, "more people live in this city than can all fit on the sidewalks." Maybe just don't.
The problem is the 2nd staircase creates the need for a hallway between the staircases. Look at the floor plans in the article. In one you've got units clustered around a staircase landing. In the other you've got a long hallway and 2 staircases with units along the hallway.
What's wrong with a second (simple, metal) staircase on the outside, like seems to be a thing in old city houses?
The first person I ever saw laid out on the ground during a fire had been sleeping in an apartment building which had only one exit, at one end of the building. The fire-escape stairs on the other end was missing, and the door bolted so it would not open. The fire was raging near the only stairway. It was the only access firemen had. The young kid was dead. "Seattle-based architect Michael Eliason" is a complete idio…
Anyhow, funny story regarding dead people after a fire. He jumped out of a balcony. The fire was in his apartment. The firefighters were already at the door. It turns out the dude was off his meds. (Or never on them.) Because no one gives a shit about mental health. But maybe let's mandate bars on balconies so people can't jump out.
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The correct approach is to design for the biggest common mistakes, not for all mistakes ever. We already do this for floods, earthquakes, wind load, etc.
This cladding was common. They’re still trying to remove it from buildings now.
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The regulations are not evidence based, they are outrage based though :/
These things correlate though. Sure, sometimes we get misses like child car seats, but more often than not outrage-induced regulation manages to make things better.
Cancer outrage? You get the California meaningless stickers.
Police brutality? Racism? You get polarizing protests and no real change.
Outrage is at best the first step. But it's really the sign of decades (or more) of gridlocked politics.