171–180 of 309 posts
I'm curious why they don't just make one open-air stairway, and build ladders into the buildings' walls. Multiple permanent ventilated escape methods.
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I'm surprised that anyone could have that response after reading the article. It is very clearly talking about space wasted primarily in hallways and in the restrictions that requiring two stairways puts on floorplans.
Yep, that's what I'm talking about. Those things are important negative space. What would you get, one more apartment per floor? Let's not crawl over each other like ants.
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…
He points out that the long corridor type of building you are describing is often caused by the need to make a Teo staircase build financially viable.
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In the USA, the Sept 11 WTC collapse was another one of those "Shelter in place as deadly" incidents when "something that couldn't happen" (skyscrapers collapsing from impact/fire/{conspiracy theories go here}) did. They were "designed to withstand an airplane crash" - and, previously, other buildings had [0]. "Stay in a building that's actively on fire, don't worry, people will come and take care of it!" sounds, to…
>Shelter in place as deadly Similarly, the standard instruction for earthquakes is "stop drop and hold", since the advice has to be fully general, covering all people in all circumstances, including highrises where evacuation is not possible. But I live in the ground floor of a not particularly well-built four story apartment building; my desk is eight feet away from an outside door. If there's an earthquake, I'm lea…
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> The problem is that you can't track how many disasters were prevented by having two means of egress, so I cant imagine there are real statistics on that Why wouldn't you be able to compare statistics from the US to any other country that doesn't have that rule?
Because countries that don't have that rule also don't have a bunch of other important fire safety rules.
The whole time I was reading this I couldn't stop thinking, "Sure, we can get more usable space if we ignore modern fire safety precautions." And also "pushing apartment capacity a few % points isn't really going to move the needle much on the housing crisis in many areas."
Allowing single stair buildings facilitates multi family dwellings to be built on much smaller lots - even those that currently contain single family homes.
Changing that regulation is the basis for why cities like Paris can’t maintain New York level postulation density without many buildings greater than 6 floors.
> The purported reason for such rules is fire safety, though there’s no evidence that Americans and Canadians are any safer from structure fires than our neighbors around the world, where one-staircase construction is permitted even in buildings eight, 10, or 20 stories high. That is quite a thing to dismiss. Is there evidence otherwise? Shouldn't we be looking at evidence that two staircases improves safety regardle…
The building height one is significant as the balcony is often the second means of egress, via a fire truck ladder.
https://www.treehugger.com/single-stair-buildings-united-sta...
> there’s no evidence that Americans and Canadians are any safer from structure fires than our neighbors around the world Except, you know, all the tenants above the first floor scrambling for their lives on a single stairwell.
Limiting number of units per floor or providing balconies that are ladder accessible.
https://www.treehugger.com/single-stair-buildings-united-sta...
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.
https://blog.getmyparking.com/2019/07/01/why-parking-minimum...
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I wouldn’t want to pay 33% more for that extra increment of safety. I drive a car, after all.
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.