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Exit Strategy: The Case for Single-Stair Egress

architecturalrecord.com

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Re: Exit Strategy: The Case for Single-Stair Egress

#21

Post by akavi »

seabass-labrax wrote: post #14

It's a thought-provoking article. I have mixed feelings about the idea: on one hand, visiting a friend's Weimar-era home in the DDR side of Berlin really impressed me. It was slightly different from those depicted in the article (it was part of a longer row of connected buildings), but the green space afforded by the courtyard was wonderful and the opportunities for community building palpable. Yet, on the other hand…

> Why can't we have both multiple staircases and fire-retardant construction?

Because that

1) that costs more money (if you object, "How dare we value money more than human lives?", replace "costs money" with "requires a greater amount of the limited quantity of human labor"), which means fewer homes are built, which means it costs more to purchase/rent a home.

2) Means buildings have to deal with the inherent topological constraints of double-loaded corridors (ie, apartments can't "cross-cut" the building, allowing cross-ventilation/greater number of windows.

Re: Exit Strategy: The Case for Single-Stair Egress

#22

Post by jltsiren »

seabass-labrax wrote: post #14

It's a thought-provoking article. I have mixed feelings about the idea: on one hand, visiting a friend's Weimar-era home in the DDR side of Berlin really impressed me. It was slightly different from those depicted in the article (it was part of a longer row of connected buildings), but the green space afforded by the courtyard was wonderful and the opportunities for community building palpable. Yet, on the other hand…

> Why can't we have both multiple staircases and fire-retardant construction?

If your goal is to save lives, there are other things you can regulate that are orders of magnitude more cost-effective. Where the expected price of each saved life is just millions instead of billions.

When there was another discussion on this topic a while ago, I spent some time reading about fire deaths in Finland. Finland is a country with more fire deaths per capita than most Western countries. Partly due to attitudes, and partly because of the prevalence of saunas, which are almost as big fire hazards as kitchens.

What I found was that fire deaths that could have been prevented by a second staircase are extremely rare. When people die in a fire in an apartment building, it's almost always in the unit the fire started. Either the people didn't notice it quickly enough, or the fire blocked the front door.

Re: Exit Strategy: The Case for Single-Stair Egress

#23

Post by wahern »

vajrabum wrote: post #16
pphysch wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the new 4-6 story apartment buildings I see going up in USA are all timber frames, at least in the residential floors.

That is most likely part of the reason why US multi-story buildings are less safe than European ones. I know that Europeans find the idea of wood frame buildings to be a little scary. Like wny do you do that?

If you look at the data, I don't think structural and framing material has much if anything to do with fire deaths. Japan also has a high proportion of wooden framing, for single family homes about the same as the U.S. This is less so for multi-story, but if you look at the numbers the fire death rate in Japan is nearly identical between single-family and multi-story dwellings. Fire death rates in Europe, even Western Europe, vary significantly across countries even with similar building practices. In the US fire death rates have dropped precipitously in the past quarter century despite continued reliance on wooden construction.

What seems to matter are other factors, such as fire warning, fire suppression, and general fire safety knowledge. But also things like electrical systems, kitchen design, cooking methods, etc.

Re: Exit Strategy: The Case for Single-Stair Egress

#24

Post by colinbartlett »

tommoor wrote: post #12

My 30+ story building has two concrete stairwells wrapped around each other, which seems like a super efficient way to achieve the current legislation

They are called scissor stairs and it's very common here in newer buildings in NYC as well. Though I believe it's only permitted in buildings 12 stories are less? It always seemed very space efficient -- separated by concrete fireproof walls and taking up the same vertical space.

Re: Exit Strategy: The Case for Single-Stair Egress

#25

Post by ericd »

sparrish wrote: post #3

Single-stair egress costs lives. It shouldn't be allowed. They were right to ban them, no matter how 'ugly' or costly it makes the buildings.

For most people, housing costing more means spending years more of your life working. Is a tiny risk reduction worth that? It wouldn’t be for me. The risk of additional years of commuting is probably higher.

Re: Exit Strategy: The Case for Single-Stair Egress

#26

Post by tetromino_ »

helloooooooo wrote: post #7
sparrish wrote: post #3

Single-stair egress costs lives. It shouldn't be allowed. They were right to ban them, no matter how 'ugly' or costly it makes the buildings.

For timber frame buildings, maybe. But in modern concrete fire resistant compartmentalized building it does not make sense at all.

Regardless of whether the building is concrete or wood, it will have plastic: interior decorations, exterior cladding or siding, fittings, insulation, polymerized paint on the walls and ceilings, synthetic carpeting on the floor, furniture and personal property... You won't die from spreading flames, flames spread slowly; instead, you will very quickly die from toxic smoke from burning plastic. The toxic smoke which will spread equally well in a concrete or wooden apartment building.

Re: Exit Strategy: The Case for Single-Stair Egress

#28

Post by ajsnigrutin »

seabass-labrax wrote: post #14

It's a thought-provoking article. I have mixed feelings about the idea: on one hand, visiting a friend's Weimar-era home in the DDR side of Berlin really impressed me. It was slightly different from those depicted in the article (it was part of a longer row of connected buildings), but the green space afforded by the courtyard was wonderful and the opportunities for community building palpable. Yet, on the other hand…

I live in a former yugoslav socialist building, and our external walls are made from reinforced concrete. Our internal walls are reinforced concrete. Our bathroom walls are reinforced concrete. Drilling a hole to pull a network cable from one room to another is a pain.

On the other hand... this are the results of a rather large gas explosion: https://novice.svet24.si/clanek/novice/crna-kronika/5be30a53... and another one: https://www.24ur.com/novice/crna-kronika/v-stanovanju-eksplo...

Fires usually stay contained to one unit for quite a lot of time, especially if the firefighters water everything from both sides (windows and doors).

Re: Exit Strategy: The Case for Single-Stair Egress

#29

Post by aeturnum »

I liked this youtube video that covers the same topic[1]. The US focusing entirely on this strategy to increase fire safety seems obviously stupid to me. As people say in other comments here - Europe and other countries require better fire suppression measures and materials instead of particular egress options. An obvious improvement would be to allow builders to use any combination of these approaches to achieve a minimal level of safety.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRdwXQb7CfM

Re: Exit Strategy: The Case for Single-Stair Egress

#30

Post by avisser »

josephcsible wrote: post #17
mynameisvlad wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On its own? Sure. But they are rarely found in a vacuum. Per the article: > American approaches aim to make combustible light wood-frame buildings easier to escape by providing multiple paths of egress; European codes, by contrast, require fire-resistant materials and compartmentation to prevent fires from spreading in the first place. Statistically, the evidence is clear: fire-death rates are consistently lower in E…

Sure, Europe's requirements save more lives than the US's overall. But we should take the best of both rather than abandoning the good parts of US standards. Saying we should stop having multiple paths of egress because more fire-resistant buildings save more lives is like saying we should stop having air bags because seat belts save more lives.

> Saying we should stop having multiple paths of egress because more fire-resistant buildings save more lives is like saying we should stop having air bags because seat belts save more lives.

And completely ignores the housing shortage that's troubling almost everywhere in America.

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