271–280 of 562 posts
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How do you plan to make the fires smaller as well?
Copy paste from Europe, where they are about half the size?
* more frequently sent to rural homes, where there might not be an available hydrant, so they need to transport all the water they're likely to need
* same for wildfires
* American homes more likely to be wood+drywall
I worked on a design (only as a hobby) for a group of units in a pentagon or hexagon shape that would surround a central room. The landlord can quickly sheetrock over some doors while cutting others open. The idea is to be able to expand or contract units to accommodate different tennants. The most hilarius objection I could imagine is "nobody can have 2 refrigerators and 2 kitchens," coming from my brother who spent…
European here. I can't even put to words my embafflement upon having learnt that you US folks need two staircases.
The US has some very interesting requirements when building. In some cities, regardless of destiny, new buildings are required to have 1.x parking spots per unit or something of the sort as well. Which basically assures all buildings have to be designed for car centric life.
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Environmental review, community review, and MFH standards all have something to do with safety. It's not like root comment is arguing against fire hydrants or carbon monoxide detectors. I'm just arguing not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Setbacks, parking minimums and floor area ratios have nothing to do with safety. Community reviews have absolutely nothing to do with safety.
Any feedback brought up in a community review is on official record. I have witnessed safety concerns being brought up in community review multiple times that caused changes to the building plan. In one situation it was a very serious concern about blocking fire truck access to an elementary school.
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How do you think we feel about cookie notices?
Another European here: I think the law is fine. How companies, specially US companies react to it, that is not. 1. A ton of Health related websites in US refuse to work in Europe, because they are NOT willing to let you visit without sensitive data being grabbed with cookies. I truly do not understand how US people are ok with this. 2. The law says that you can't make hard to refuse cookies, yet many US-based sites I…
That is the less charitable interpretation. In reality a lot of sites that cater primarily to a US audience don't have the willingness or development time to try and comply with European regulations. Barring European visitors neatly solves that.
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Environmental review, community review, and MFH standards all have something to do with safety. It's not like root comment is arguing against fire hydrants or carbon monoxide detectors. I'm just arguing not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Setbacks, parking minimums and floor area ratios have nothing to do with safety. Community reviews have absolutely nothing to do with safety.
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Why would you choose to write something here with a snarky attitude like that? There's a reasoned discussion to be had around fire safety regulations, but when you instantly make it about cultures and don't even try to understand, you're not being part of the solution -- you're part of the problem.
Maybe I should say I’m from abroad instead? European seems to trigger something in some folks around here. That aside, I fail to see any cultural or other reason to require twin staircases nowadays other than ‘that’s how we always did it here’. I admit it openly and state that I’m from somewhere where we don’t do that, and the world works just as well, except buildings have a higher useful to total area ratio.
Nothing personal against you, but we see a fair number of self-described Europeans that are a lovely combination of naive, ignorant, and arrogant. It isn't fair to stereotype, but it takes ongoing effort not to.
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Don't forget about street widths being determined by the ability to turn around fire equipment.
Having streets unable to be accessible by fire response vehicles doesn't seem like a good idea. What would be the alternative here? (genuine question, I'm not from the US)
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Environmental review, community review, and MFH standards all have something to do with safety. It's not like root comment is arguing against fire hydrants or carbon monoxide detectors. I'm just arguing not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
We have zoning and internationally recognized building safety codes already. Our current housing emergency happening everywhere is a pretty good indicator that we should be much more aggressive about trimming back the regulatory state which has ossified our cities.
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Why would that happen? Demand will be satisfied as that would be the most high value thing to do, driving the land tax wherever the process starts.
You mean why luxury apartments will become regular apartments? Most of the "luxury" apartments these days aren't really that special besides being newer and trendier. Of course, the truly iconic buildings will always be considered luxurious, but even the above average ones depreciate. In Manhattan, you can see a lot of buildings from a century ago with degraded ornamentation that would have been beautiful in their he…
I would say the biggest component of a luxury apartment is the layout. A huge open space is amazing if you want to throw large parties, and can easily use up as much space as 3 studio flats. But the one huge luxury apartment will never realistically degrade into 3 studio flats.