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The case for single-stair multifamily

thesisdriven.com

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Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#71

Post by logifail »

Mostly OT, but related to emergency staircases.

We visited Glasgow (Scotland) last summer and the hotel fire alarm went off the middle of the night (for whatever reason we seem to attract fire alarms while on family holidays)

After getting the kids dressed(ish) we exited the rooms, totally missing that there was one emergency staircase immediately opposite. There was a sign at ceiling height, at 90 degrees to us, which was basically invisible. There was no sign on the door to the staircase itself :/

So, we went all the way down the hall, along with a bunch of other guests, then I carried my 7 year-old down seven floors' worth of the secondary staircase stairs to the ground floor, really pretty slow progress due to the number of people, on exiting the building we met four fire engines plus a significant police presence, and hundreds of hotel guests. Turned out it wasn't a fire, but a disturbance, and a fire alarm had been activated as part of that. We were outside for ages.

Lesson learned: just as you hopefully do immediately after boarding an aircraft, check your exit routes well before you need them...

Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#72

Post by prpl »

exabrial wrote: post #20

No. It’s not only fire that’s a hazard, but a personal safety thing. Most men here probably never experienced being stalked, or having to turn around when your path is through a group of shady characters. In the Midwest, brick/concrete fire stairwells have another benefit: tornado shelters. While a sufficient tornado would decimate any wooden structure, these stairwells provide essential protection from the main haza…

you might want to entertain the possibility that, due to these limitations, there’s much less families in the city, as a 3BR apartment is rare and a 4 BR apartment unheard of. In Europe and even south America, that’s not typically the case.

Having lived in both Santiago, Chile and San Francisco with a family, I’d say generally the quality of life is higher (schools, restaurants, opportunities) in major cities in the US, but it’s easier live as family (without a car) in Santiago. Having relatives in Europe I think this is also true.

I’m not sure if removing this limitation fixes that, but without high density 3+ bedroom housing you don’t get families (especially middle class families)

Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#73

Post by standardUser »

carabiner wrote: post #57
exabrial wrote: post #20

No. It’s not only fire that’s a hazard, but a personal safety thing. Most men here probably never experienced being stalked, or having to turn around when your path is through a group of shady characters. In the Midwest, brick/concrete fire stairwells have another benefit: tornado shelters. While a sufficient tornado would decimate any wooden structure, these stairwells provide essential protection from the main haza…

"Think of the children" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children ) has morphed into "think of the helpless women." Tell me, in places that do not have this building regulation, is stalking an epidemic at apartment buildings? In what other ways are they suffering? Would you support adding a two-stair requirement in those locales?

Yeah, that'll happen when no one thinks about women for a few hundred years. What year did your state make it illegal for a man to hit his wife?

Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#74

Post by jlhawn »

bobthepanda wrote: post #67
nicole_express wrote: post #21

I'd like to see more discussion of the safety impact; I know the article makes the point that fire deaths per capita are lower in Europe, which lacks the requirement, but it also notes that US housing stock is also much more wooden and therefore at higher risk to begin with. (Wood construction is generally a good thing from a sustainability perspective) Whenever I see this proposed my brain immediately goes to the Gr…

The intention of the double stairwell requirement, is that you are not supposed to have your access point to the stairwell by an obstruction, and there should be a maximum access time to the stairwell. One notable requirement of single-stair buildings where they are legal in the US, is that 1. the height is generally determined by the height of the fire ladders available, providing a second means of egress 2. the sin…

also fire suppression system (sprinklers) and pressurized stairwells are mandated.

Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#75

Post by ksenzee »

exabrial wrote: post #20

No. It’s not only fire that’s a hazard, but a personal safety thing. Most men here probably never experienced being stalked, or having to turn around when your path is through a group of shady characters. In the Midwest, brick/concrete fire stairwells have another benefit: tornado shelters. While a sufficient tornado would decimate any wooden structure, these stairwells provide essential protection from the main haza…

The two-staircase requirement leads directly to apartment buildings being big, with long corridors. Given my choice of living in a small building with a few families, with one staircase, where people know each other (the one-stair architecture does in fact lend itself to residents knowing each other) or living in a big building, with long corridors, where people don’t get to know each other, I’d feel a lot safer as a woman living in the smaller building.

Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#77

Post by ok_dad »

RandomLensman wrote: post #43
ok_dad wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The classic example is the lot that sits empty or has a parking structure on it in Manhattan. Today, you pay very little tax on the empty land or parking lot because you’re taxed on that total value of the land and improvements. This discourages building stuff sometimes. With land value tax, you’d be taxed on what someone would pay you for that land with improvements similar to surrounding, so it’s advantageous to bu…

So if the most valuable use is luxury apartments and stores that would be what everything needs to converge to? Feels like a tax always looking towards the most valuable use could actually be very regressive and push anything but the richest out of economically attractive cities. Maybe I am missing something?

I mean, it might be that there’s an empty lot outside your own home that could use some houses built on it but no one does because it’s easier to pay a pittance for taxes and leave it sit until it’s worth more. There are many cases where land could be put to better use but it’s not. A few people might get priced out of an area, but they’ll be able to sell their land and buy something elsewhere easily. The downside is certainly there but I think the upsides outweigh those.

Re: The case for single-stair multifamily

#79

Post by from-nibly »

We just need to make builders more liable for issues caused by their own building.

Building codes are just a way to say, you won't get in trouble for bad things that happen, in return you have to follow these rules every time you build a house.

Instead if we just say, if you build a house that kills someone, you are now a murderer, then yeah I think the markets can figure out how to not get people killed. But that's not going to happen for lots of reasons.

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