Staircases and Sharks
Feb. 5th, 2023 01:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexxkayThe Single-Staircase Radicals Have a Good Point
This article pissed me off, for somewhat complex reasons. I agree with many of the goals expressed here. It would be good for staircases to not be brutalist concrete. It would be good for apartments to have more varied floor plans, and to let in more light. It is even good to examine past assumptions that have been baked into regulation and law, and see if they still make sense. But to abandon such a fundamental safety mechanism as a second staircase? This is, to me, madness.
The article makes the claim, unsourced, that "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". The main source article they link to does cite a FEMA report, which shows the USA pretty squarely in the middle of fire deaths per capita. Which, if staircase regulations were the only factor involved, I would find compelling. But there are huge differences in culture, city planning, fire department practice, and probably other factors. I will grant the point that I don't have positive evidence that a second staircase increases safety, but I don't see any strong evidence against the idea, either.
“In the architecture world it’s hammered in from the beginning that we need two exits from every space. But in most other countries, that second means of egress is the fire brigade.” There are many places in the world where I would accept that as a reasonable proposition. In a USA which has suffered from about 45 years where half the government has been systematically trying to destroy state capacity to do, well, anything, I do not trust my life to the response times and competence of a government entity. The thing about a second staircase is, it's really, really hard for that to stop functioning, for any reason. I am reminded of something Douglas Adams once said when asked if e-books would replace paper books (as related by Neil Gaiman): “a physical book is like a shark. Sharks are old: there were sharks in the ocean before the dinosaurs. And the reason there are still sharks around is that sharks are better at being sharks than anything else is. Physical books are tough, hard to destroy, bath-resistant, solar-operated, feel good in your hand: they are good at being books, and there will always be a place for them.” A staircase is similarly like a shark. It does a simple job very well, and remains a standard tool for the job.
This movement to do away with a second staircase is also of a piece with "just in time" manufacturing, systems which optimize for short-term profit, not long-term resilience. Architectural safety is not somewhere I want to see that principle applied.
This feels very personal to me. A few years ago, there was a significant fire in my house. It was caught in time to prevent a major disaster, but only just. It was located very near the front door, and if it had gone undetected for a minute more than it actually did, would have rendered that exit impassible. And smoke was pouring up the main staircase. My house happened to have a back staircase and a back door, both of which I was extremely grateful for. [To be clear, it's an old Victorian house; what fire safety exists is largely coincidental, not by design.]
In the middle of the article comes the passage that really got to me: "The specter of big structure fires—like the fire at London’s Grenfell Tower, the single-stair housing project whose defective façade panels caught fire in 2017, killing 71 people—is what reformers like Eliason and Speckert are up against. But building fires are much less common than they were when single-stair rules were codified" This, to me, is the same heartless, capitalist logic behind covid-minimizers. "Sure, this kills people, but it's statistically unlikely to kill you, so why worry about it?" Of course, the fact that these fires (and pandemic deaths) will tend, like Grenfell, to occur more often to poor, non-white people adds race and class to the awful reasons why these deaths are seen as acceptable. The preventable deaths are simply accepted as (literally) the cost of doing business.
This article pissed me off, for somewhat complex reasons. I agree with many of the goals expressed here. It would be good for staircases to not be brutalist concrete. It would be good for apartments to have more varied floor plans, and to let in more light. It is even good to examine past assumptions that have been baked into regulation and law, and see if they still make sense. But to abandon such a fundamental safety mechanism as a second staircase? This is, to me, madness.
The article makes the claim, unsourced, that "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". The main source article they link to does cite a FEMA report, which shows the USA pretty squarely in the middle of fire deaths per capita. Which, if staircase regulations were the only factor involved, I would find compelling. But there are huge differences in culture, city planning, fire department practice, and probably other factors. I will grant the point that I don't have positive evidence that a second staircase increases safety, but I don't see any strong evidence against the idea, either.
“In the architecture world it’s hammered in from the beginning that we need two exits from every space. But in most other countries, that second means of egress is the fire brigade.” There are many places in the world where I would accept that as a reasonable proposition. In a USA which has suffered from about 45 years where half the government has been systematically trying to destroy state capacity to do, well, anything, I do not trust my life to the response times and competence of a government entity. The thing about a second staircase is, it's really, really hard for that to stop functioning, for any reason. I am reminded of something Douglas Adams once said when asked if e-books would replace paper books (as related by Neil Gaiman): “a physical book is like a shark. Sharks are old: there were sharks in the ocean before the dinosaurs. And the reason there are still sharks around is that sharks are better at being sharks than anything else is. Physical books are tough, hard to destroy, bath-resistant, solar-operated, feel good in your hand: they are good at being books, and there will always be a place for them.” A staircase is similarly like a shark. It does a simple job very well, and remains a standard tool for the job.
This movement to do away with a second staircase is also of a piece with "just in time" manufacturing, systems which optimize for short-term profit, not long-term resilience. Architectural safety is not somewhere I want to see that principle applied.
This feels very personal to me. A few years ago, there was a significant fire in my house. It was caught in time to prevent a major disaster, but only just. It was located very near the front door, and if it had gone undetected for a minute more than it actually did, would have rendered that exit impassible. And smoke was pouring up the main staircase. My house happened to have a back staircase and a back door, both of which I was extremely grateful for. [To be clear, it's an old Victorian house; what fire safety exists is largely coincidental, not by design.]
In the middle of the article comes the passage that really got to me: "The specter of big structure fires—like the fire at London’s Grenfell Tower, the single-stair housing project whose defective façade panels caught fire in 2017, killing 71 people—is what reformers like Eliason and Speckert are up against. But building fires are much less common than they were when single-stair rules were codified" This, to me, is the same heartless, capitalist logic behind covid-minimizers. "Sure, this kills people, but it's statistically unlikely to kill you, so why worry about it?" Of course, the fact that these fires (and pandemic deaths) will tend, like Grenfell, to occur more often to poor, non-white people adds race and class to the awful reasons why these deaths are seen as acceptable. The preventable deaths are simply accepted as (literally) the cost of doing business.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-02-05 06:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-02-05 07:03 am (UTC)I have never even had as close a call with fire as you have and the idea of not having a second egress from my home is appalling to me. There are all sorts of reasons I can think for wanting more than one way out of a space that a fire brigade isn't going to help me with.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-02-05 03:23 pm (UTC)As well, external fire escapes are still permitted by building code, and can be integrated into balconies. External spiral wrought-iron staircases are a well-loved feature of Montreal architecture, and would work well with a taller building with a single internal stairwell.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-02-05 04:25 pm (UTC)They kept talking about saving money with fewer staircases, but the floor plans shown were all for 1-3 units per floor, which doesn't sound like "affordable housing" to me. It shouldn't be too hard to collect rent statistics for single stairwell vs multi-stair buildings in the same city.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-02-05 10:06 pm (UTC)The real reason this architect is against the two staircase standard is sort of buried if you don't know what to look for: A ha. Eliason is against one bedroom apartments.
(This is me pulling on my very dusty architecture hat.)
The long corridors Eliason decries are basically necessary for studio, one-bedroom, and even two-bedroom apartments to be built affordably. A fact with which I have wrestled a lot, because the article is quite correct: they prevent cross ventilation*, which in turn is hugely consequential in our global warming reality.
Quite aside from our present problem with lack of affordable housing in the Boston area, and predating it back to the days of rent control, has been the issue of insufficient housing stock for single people and couples without children. We don't have remotely enough single occupancy housing here. Which is why so many people were (illegally!) sharing three-bedroom apartments in roommate situations back in the 80s and 90s. It wasn't that people liked having roommates, it was that the scarcity of studios and one bedrooms made their price high.
So maybe things are different elsewhere, but this guy's anti-studio apartment crusade rubs me the wrong way for a very different reason.
* As usually meant. There's an approach from traditional East African architecture (the name of which is eluding me right this moment) I have never heard of implemented in an American apartment building. It kills me that the building I live in could be retrofitted to do this, but if course it's not in the owner's financial interests. If someone would just give me this building, I could do so much to green it...
(no subject)
Date: 2023-02-05 05:41 pm (UTC)Perhaps not by legislation, but I suspect fires were strong in the minds of architects back then...
Otherwise, agreed. The continued drive to quash useful resilience/redundancy in our society is incredibly harmful, and this is a great example.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-02-06 12:37 am (UTC)"But in most other countries, that second means of egress is the fire brigade.”
Fire safety people point out that the max reliable height for professional rescue from a structure is about six stories. Seven if you're lucky and no floor is double height.
Others have pointed out the red-herring economic issues.