Hate to be a downer but I think this idea would be a fire hazard. The stairwell just isn’t made for this use or capacity. It’s a transient, liminal space.
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‘One step at a time’: entrepreneur buys stairwell in London to help startups
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Re: ‘One step at a time’: entrepreneur buys stairwell in London to help startups
#22> he was not interested in developing the stairwell in order to sell it: “I don’t want to contribute to increasing the prices of rent and housing for people. I don’t think it’s net-positive for society. How is taking risk trying to increase the amount of wealth not positive? I would understand if he said "I have a better plan for this place than developing it for sale", but this line of thinking...
Because his positive is providing a free space for people to build businesses not to immediately enrich himself. He said “I have a better plan than developing it” without having to say that and making a statement about the state of rent pricing in the UK.
What concerns you about this line of thinking? Without it we wouldn’t have food banks that could service 100s of people, why not just build another cafe where there is a food bank and give 5 people a job rather than 100s food?
Both need to exist (sadly for the food banks) in this world.
Re: ‘One step at a time’: entrepreneur buys stairwell in London to help startups
#23> he was not interested in developing the stairwell in order to sell it: “I don’t want to contribute to increasing the prices of rent and housing for people. I don’t think it’s net-positive for society. How is taking risk trying to increase the amount of wealth not positive? I would understand if he said "I have a better plan for this place than developing it for sale", but this line of thinking...
> I would understand if he said "I have a better plan for this place than developing it for sale", but this line of thinking...
But that is what he says. Earlier in the article it describes exactly what he plans to do with it. Namely “hoping to get permission from the local council to turn it into a pop-up shop, office or “live-work space” that entrepreneurs can use – potentially for up to a month at a time – free of charge.”
Re: ‘One step at a time’: entrepreneur buys stairwell in London to help startups
#24Hate to be a downer but I think this idea would be a fire hazard. The stairwell just isn’t made for this use or capacity. It’s a transient, liminal space.
> Hate to be a downer but I think this idea would be a fire hazard.
Which idea? What use and what capacity? The ideas in the article run a wide gamuth of different uses and proposed capacities.
You are right if they would stuff the staircase full of stuff and a crowd to achieve the same density as a normal shop that would be probably unsafe. But that is far from the only thing which is mentioned in the article.
One plan he mentions is a sort of meeting space where people pitch him while walking up the stairs. That would be what? No extra obstruction in the staircase and a max occupancy of 5? (How many people do you realistically want to pitch simultaneously?) There is nothing unsafe about that.
The other plan he mentions is to make the stairs his private office. I don’t see the floorplans but I don’t see why you couldn’t turn the space into an office with an occupancy limit of let’s say 3. Basically an overgrown garden shed. To do that you might need to do some construction work.
The very fact that he has a list of ideas going from hard to easy means to me that he is aware of the very constraint you are mentioning.
About his more ambitious ideas: if he has sense he should sit down with an engineer who is well versed in the local safety regulations. Clearly the more obstructions you design in to the space the more limit you need to put on capacity. You can also imagine putting limits on how high people can go. You don’t need to use all of the stairs. You can for example use ground floor and the first landing as popup store, second landing as “crew only” storage space and block of the rest of the stairs. How many people can you let in the building then? Once he knows the shape of the limits he can work within he can start thinking to find a program which can safely work within those limits.
Re: ‘One step at a time’: entrepreneur buys stairwell in London to help startups
#25Owns a 2 millions house and buy a stairwell for 20k. This reads like a parody.
Re: ‘One step at a time’: entrepreneur buys stairwell in London to help startups
#26Owns a 2 millions house and buy a stairwell for 20k. This reads like a parody.
The entire thing reads like The Onion article. This is just a cherry on top
“I own a £2m mansion not too far away, but I think I actually prefer the staircase."
Re: ‘One step at a time’: entrepreneur buys stairwell in London to help startups
#27Maybe it's because I'm American, but my first thought was ... there's a separate building and it's just the stairs? So if they sold it, how would the people in the building next door get up and down? How does a structure that's just stairs have a separate title that can be sold? The entire premise of this is so incomprehensible to me. Brits -- is this a common thing?
> Brits -- is this a common thing?
No this is a London thing because London property prices are ridiculous. For the price of a London bedsite you'd be able to buy a detached house in most other places in the UK.
Re: ‘One step at a time’: entrepreneur buys stairwell in London to help startups
#28> he was not interested in developing the stairwell in order to sell it: “I don’t want to contribute to increasing the prices of rent and housing for people. I don’t think it’s net-positive for society. How is taking risk trying to increase the amount of wealth not positive? I would understand if he said "I have a better plan for this place than developing it for sale", but this line of thinking...
Because his positive is providing a free space for people to build businesses not to immediately enrich himself. He said “I have a better plan than developing it” without having to say that and making a statement about the state of rent pricing in the UK. What concerns you about this line of thinking? Without it we wouldn’t have food banks that could service 100s of people, why not just build another cafe where there…
It is a weird line of reasoning though. Converting this to a living space isn't the same as buy to let etc, you'd be creating new housing where there isn't any.
Re: ‘One step at a time’: entrepreneur buys stairwell in London to help startups
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fire codes are not just about users. Think of responders. One cannot opt out of fires codes meant to protect the firefighters who may well have to rescue people from stairwells. For instance: no clutter like office desks to trip them up. Or, no combustibles in an open, vertical , space that fire could use to spread.
Firefighters are responsible for protecting themselves. If a situation is too dangerous, they can prioritize their safety first.
Maybe if they know, but nobody keeps a record of which codes are being followed and which are not in each paticular room. Firefighters rely on building codes. They dont have time to read through user-generated exceptions documents before responding to a fire. Even if they did, such practices are akin to sovcits opting out of obeying laws they dislike. Safety codes are meaningless if not apllied to all.
Re: ‘One step at a time’: entrepreneur buys stairwell in London to help startups
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Firefighters are responsible for protecting themselves. If a situation is too dangerous, they can prioritize their safety first.
Maybe if they know, but nobody keeps a record of which codes are being followed and which are not in each paticular room. Firefighters rely on building codes. They dont have time to read through user-generated exceptions documents before responding to a fire . Even if they did, such practices are akin to sovcits opting out of obeying laws they dislike. Safety codes are meaningless if not apllied to all.
The firefighters can also read the big sticker. We will make it fireproof. We will include the fact that fire fighters will be slower to respond because they too will read the sticker, on the sticker.
Or better yet one of those "child inside" stickers but "no firefighters" so they know the building had opted out.