In Belgium, apartment buildings also require two separate fire escapes, but one of them can be a window. Ladder access is required unless a fire truck can easily reach it. This explains why the two-stairs rule starts at 6 floors, that's simply the highest our biggest ladder trucks can reach. The fire department always checks building plans before they get planning permission and local governments will basically always follow their advice. So depending on the place, there can be stricter limits. Buildings with a higher fire risk like student dorms for example always have stricter fire regulations.
Canada will need to redesign fire trucks as well since currently they are so massive so you would need to create enormous roads around the building to make them part and to their job
I kind of got confused mid-way through the video because, well I com from Montreal and most apartments are three stories high with a half basement and I have never entered a two staircases apartment. In most cases it's the same thing as you describe, there are two fire exit one of which is through an outdoor staircase, literally the same as you can see in the background of the video. In fact, many 3 story apartment buildings don't even have inside staircase, there is a staircase in the front yard and one in the backyard. Even in the case of a higher rise, I have been in one where the second fire exit was through a window and then staircases, the appartement was on the eight floor. I get the point of the video and I strongly agree with it but it seems like the staircase story cannot be the only reason why bulkier buildings are so prevalent. Since most of those building were built after Montreal's great fire, I assume they were built after the 2 staircase law. However, I am in no way more knowledgable than About Here, so maybe I am missing out on something.
How do people jump down from the windows without dying? You do realize many buildings with windows have been on fire and the people inside still couldn’t escape and died.
Housing minister Ravi Kahlon literally just linked this video in his announcement that they are allowing single-staircase builds in BC starting the fall. Amazing work, Utae.
@@michaelplunkett8059 I actually don't think so. I was reading more into this and it turns out the laws we have now just mandate required stairwells per floor. So, if your floors each have like 50 units, they all share the two stairwells (along with all the floors above and below them). And that's all they get. Just the two stairwells. If there are too many people for those two stairwells, oh well, the builder meet that minimum of two stairwells. But, there are also ways of doing it where you mandate a minimum number of stairwells for each resident to have access to. That way, you can have one stairwell, two, maybe even three or more, whatever you need to reach that minimum so that each resident as enough stairwell access without too many other residents using that stairwell too. I think that way is better. It should be about what's safe or not for people, not about number of floors or any other aspect of the building which are the end of the day is just an aspect of the building, not the whole picture.
When I lived in Boston's North End, my appt building had a deck on the roof overlooking the waterfront. This allowed tenants to socialize in the evenings without any invitation of sort. My friends could also drop by and hang out with me on the rooftop. I felt that, mentally, we were better off for it. If I had to meet friends outside somewhere else in the city, it would almost always feel like we had to spend money and transportation cost to make it happen.
I lived in Southie during the start of the pandemic, and the rooftop access was a lifesaver in terms of mental health with all the public spaces shut down.
@@simonestreeter1518 at least i know their face and who lives where. As bigger the building, as less possible. It's less anonymous in smaller structures.
Theres plenty of places to socialize, i feel like alot of if the "socialization spaces" take away area where there could be more units, and be honest 99% of people dont want to deal with their neighbors like that, and i dont want to lay extra for said spaces
Oh man, the hotel analogy is too true! All the new luxury apartments in LA have these tiny units with windows on only one side going for $5,000/mo rent, and when you open your front door, instead of being outside, you're in a (depressingly artificially lit) hallway. Each time I left a tour of a new apartment I thought to myself "I want to live somewhere that feels like a home, not somewhere that feels like they're just packing people in like a hotel - and certainly not for $5,000/mo." Now I understand why I always had that feeling.
Apartments in LA feel like caves. You get these stark shadows from their long shape and singular points of light. I would love to see more layout flexibility. I think it would make a huge difference in making apartments more desirable here.
It sounds like you just want a single family home? All (ETA: hi rise) apartments have hallways. Unless your ground floor you can’t just walk out of any apartment. So it’d make more sense if you said “I only want to live on the ground floor” because you clearly just don’t like hi rise living. That’s fine, but it’s not a fault of the apartment.
I specifically liked my apartment because it reminded me of a luxury hotel. I have a high floor corner unit with windows on both sides of the corner though. I wouldn’t be a fan of a 3rd floor middle unit, but the location (of the building within the city) would make it acceptable still for what I pay.
@@somethingsomething404 No, I'm saying that LA apartments are skinny rectangles with windows on one side. (Not all of them, of course, but a disappointing number of them.) Like the video says, if there were more flexibility in layout, then you might have windows on two or three sides. This would make them more like single family homes and much more desirable.
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I work in a building in Toronto with a scissor stair. The "long straight run" problem was solved by putting a small landing halfway down each staircase. So you only fall 7 steps max instead of bouncing down all 14. Units are positioned on either side of the stair box. Each unit has a 'front door' and a 'back door'. Each door opens into a big shared landing on each floor for the respective staircase. The front door of your unit is the door that leads to the staircase that leads down to the front door of the building. That staircase is rather nice looking. The 'back door' leads to the other landing, to the staircase that goes to the parking behind the building. It is very utilitarian concrete, like a fire stair. I think it's a reasonable compromise.
If you wish to avoid encountering someone on a staircase, consider using a different one. It's a practical rule. Double-floor apartments offer added convenience.
@@eugenetswong That's right, 2 units per floor. A narrow but deep lot, 4 floors, 8 units on what used to be a lot for a single family home. Precisely the kind of small infill construction that this video is promoting. It was more common in the first half of the last century but is now impossible due to gradual changes in the building code. This is not a new building. It fits the lot perfectly and the scissor stair maximizes usable floor space while providing the required 2 fire exits per floor, which has been in the fire code here for multi-family buildings for about 100 years.
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I like the material being presented in the recent episodes. Identifying regulations that unintentionally add additional costs and complexity to house construction
@@michaeltutty1540Perhaps. Or would a second exit have been enough? If the rest of the world is doing okay, what’s different? This kind of videos can show the reality for us to judge.
Living in a Chicago walkup (and most buildings on my block being the same, roughly 3-4 stories) this staircase issue seems to be somewhat alleviated by having outdoor staircases attached at the back on the building. This being said, almost all Chicago blocks have alleyways in addition to the street so access is easier than other cities. Added bonus: Each unit in my building has a small outdoor space on the staircase landing where people set up small bistro sets, grills, and outdoor furniture in a mini patio setup. Not ideal, but my building was built in the 90s so compatible with the current building codes.
The outside staircase on the back of the building connecting to the balconies is common here in Montreal too. I live in one that's 15 years old, so it was still being allowed fairly recently at least.
Yes, the porches are great and helps with this issue. Though it's annoying when someone asks you to help them move and of course they are on the top floor...
That's a great solution to buildings with 1 unit per floor, and is very common for single-family home conversions. The problem becomes the medium-sized buildings where you have 2-3 units per floor. Now you need 2-3 staircases on the exterior of the building which starts eating up your available floorspace/lot size.
@@agilemind6241 We regularly have buildings with porches with 2-3 units per floor. The porch runs along the back of the building and has one stair shared by all of the units. There can still be windows along the porch, satisfying light and ventilation requirements.
I live in Germany and while we used to build the thin apartment buildings in the past nowadays it's very uncommon and most apartment buildings look like the american counterparts, rather large blocks. The reason is, that rarely individual persons build apartment buildings anymore like it was common in the past but now it's housing companies (some large ones owned by the state/cities) that build large apartment blocks and it's simply cheaper and more efficient to build a large block instead of 20 individual units.
The "American" model is multiple buildings spread over an apartment complex -- i haven't seen any "big block" ones Unless you mean the high rises in the metropolises??
In Belgium things are a bit different. Unless a project developper can get his hands on an entire block, the project still needs to be approved by the local council. And in most cases that council will demand the project to retain the original building fronts. Unforetunately this hasn't always been the case in the past and alot of damage was done. In some cases, the local council can even request to re-construct the original front that may have been demolished in the 1960s.
@@saladspinner3200 Yeah, that's true for Germany aswell. But it doesn't apply to completely new developed land, there the developers have free hand to design as it pleases them and in my experience that leads to large building complexes, because it's more cost efficient to only have 1 outside hull then to have many. I'm not against it though, those building complexes fit their purpose and could potentially be quite nice (never lived in one). Large in my terms here is for example a block that's been constructed in the new harbor district which is ~150m x 100m with ~12.000m² area covered (but there's lots of empty space inbetween for sunlight to enter.
The issue is that either the renter or the owner must in some way pay insurance and property taxes if they want a "permanent roof" with utilities like electricity, gas and water. Because of this, many people-at least in California, where I currently reside-are living in tents. No taxes, rent, mortgages, or insurance. The number of people who tell me they live in their car that I meet amazes me. Its crazy out here!
I get such worries too. I'm 50 and retiring early. Already worried of the future and where its headed, especially in terms of financies and how to get by. I'm also considering making my first investment in the stock market, but how can I do so given that the market has been in a mess for the majority of the year?
Uncertainty... it took me 5 years to stop trying to predict what bout to happen in market based on charts studying, cause you never know. not having a mentor cost me 5 years of pain I learn to go we’re the market is wanting to go and keep it simple with discipline.
I've watched A LOT of apartment videos (Never Too Small, Apartment Therapy, House & Home etc.) and in a million years I never would have guessed that the apartment at 10:07 was in Seattle. My first thought would have been somewhere in Europe or Latin America. I've gotten so used to seeing a certain layout in modern buildings in North America and I didn't realise it was window/staircase related until now. This video was such a fresh take and it's so interesting to see certain cities taking a different approach. Thanks for doing what you're doing!
Wow that's probably why all people who wanna have space and freedom feel like having an apartment in America is dumb, like every apartment here looks unlivably stuffy and constricted (because of the small room and barely any windows) and houses look huge, freeing, lots of light and windows and bedrooms. I've always noticed how abroad, outside America, apartments look huge, freeing, many bedrooms and windows but I've never made the connection that it was the regulations like you said
@@ahnafj416 I also think the terrible layout of modern American apartments is the largest reason so many Americans say they'd never want to live in an apartment
@@ahnafj416 i'm an immigrant to America, I don't know any other immigrants who came here to work and whose goal is to buy a condo, or who are content living in an apartment. A house with a yard (and a pool) is almost always the end goal. Back home in eastern europe, these last two years have seen a massive reduction in houses for sale and an explosion in construction of houses as the middle class appears fed up to live like ants and buys up houses for sale
This has been one of my favorite videos on this channel. Something of note; eliminating this rule could also help promote gentle density in areas where NIMBYs fear a big boxy, 4-story building would "ruin the character of their neighborhood". A 2-story building with one staircase could produce 10-12 units, significantly improving on housing stock while not setting off any alarms.
Depends on how they do it of course, but the staircase rule did come from actual concerns - so it might only apply to certain regions that are lower risk for example. But you could also mandate that landlords provide fire ladders in low risk locations. Even with better materials fire is still a larger issue in the Americas than in Europe
@@daboundy The mandatory two parking spaces and the legal distance from the curb, as well as how much space is needed for the garbage bins of just *one house* are insane in the US. If you were allowed to build narrow two storey buildings, or even three storey, the empty space needed for everything else stays roughly the same while the living density increases. The suburbs are *such* trash that even single storey row houses would be better!
There was one more thing not mentioned in the video. Firefighters in Europe have cars with ladders to evacuate people. Even in smaller towns, those ladders reach about 30 metres, which is enough which is enough for 8 floors. And apartments are built so that each apartment is a separate fire compartment and the fire doesn't spread to and from the apartment.
We have ladder trucks in Canada! Not sure why we wouldn't. And the shelter in place model was called into question after the Grenfell disaster (although that was an extreme case).
In the US and Canada firetrucks are often bigger than necessary, with large ladder trucks getting dispatched to calls where they're completely unnecessary. Any town with midrise apartments is going to have ladder trucks. Low rise wood frame construction isn't going to have as strong of a fire break between every apartment, but a new 5 story with ~60 units in my neighborhood has a firewall through the middle. Larger single stair buildings (where they are multiple sets of stair to different groups of units), are usually built with firewalls between each group, similar to separate buildings with no side setback from each other.
@@th3oryO Grenfell was an old building, and much taller than the ones mentioned in the video. And if they had used according to code in the renovation, I don't think this disaster would have happened. And the shelter in place model did work, it's just that the flats aren't built for fire spreading from outside the building.
The fire services would much rather get to the building with all of the occupants already out and safe. Then they can deal with the structure fire instead of performing potentially risky evacuations. There's a saying when dealing with OHSA - 'Safety rules are written in blood.' I think we can find ways to deal with the bedroom window and two-exit mandate without tossing out important rules.
I think this illustrates a great point that applies across multiple areas (building codes, laws, lending rules, insurance guidelines, etc.) - which is that there should be a review on a regular basis to see if they are still necessary/applicable. Every code/law/rule should have an automatic cycle of review (every 5-10 years from the date of passage perhaps) to determine if it's still accomplishing it's intended purpose. Those that are not should be revised or repealed. There are so many codes/laws/rules/guidelines in place where people do not even know their original purpose.
this guy in the video is talking nonsense. huge buildings with a lot o f units need more stairs for logistical reasons. Also it 's far safer in the event of fire. Those tiny european units are much much smaller and so don't need as many stair wells.
I've lived in these single access points building in the US. (older buildings). They had a great solution to the fire safety issue... multiple fire escapes.
I thought it was funny that he mentioned that the laws were put in place because there was only one way to escape in the event of a fire while standing in front of a building with an internal staircase and an external fire escape staircase.
The problem is, people generally consider exposed fire escapes to be ugly. Then there's the issue with the handicapped. Forcing the handicapped to live on the ground floor.... oooohhh, bad idea. Yeah, I Get It. But it's the attitude of the ADA.
Wow. I've been wondering why every single apartment building going up in my city has at most 2 bedroom apartments and why they're all the size of an entire city block with a "hotel" layout. I love older style row houses, I never understood why they aren't being built anymore. As you mentioned, because it's so hard to get enough land together to bother building a modern apartment building, my city is always pushing developers to go at least 8-10 stories or more. If you're going to bother acquiring the land may as well build as much as possible because that building is going to be there for 50-100 years. I understand the logic, but I'd rather see a ton of 4 story row houses, that only require 0.05 acres of land.
This is why I love the new Chicago 3-flats. Most of them are 3-bed units. Even though they have two stairs, the stairs are at the front and back so they don’t waste space on hallways.
this is a misinformation campaign bro, the goal is to keep cheap competitors out of real estate , two stair wells only take up twice the space of one, that's 5 less units at most
@@Sacto1654 most people missed this detail, my county demands housing built after 1991 that is 4 or more units to comply with ADA and Fair Housing Act accessibility requirements
Another simple solution is to put the hallway in one wall. I'm not sure why you didn't come up with that solution. Or if you look at many apartments in Korea, they have balconies instead of hallways. So, the windows are at the front and rear of the apartment, and they still have two stairways.
Putting the hallway along one wall still has the problem that most of the units will only have windows on one end of the unit. Bedrooms have to have a window, meaning that only the room furthest from the hallway can be a bedroom. Furthermore, this means that the building will have to be very thin, because most of the apartment unit will have no windows and therefore very little natural light. Having the hallway run through the middle of the building means that you can essentially double the number of units from what you are proposing.
Years ago I saw an interesting solution to the bedroom window requirement. I used to deliver appliances and TV's and one time went to this building where the apartment units themselves were two floors, with the living, dining rooms and kitchen on the lower floor, with the bedrooms on the upper floor. That meant both the bedrooms and living room could have an entire wall of windows.
@@awuma That's true, but maybe apartment blocks could be built with the ground floor having accessible units and the top floors having a mix? So many 3 accessible 1 BRs on the ground floor but floors 2-4 are typical one-story apartments with 2 BR and then the final 2 floors (5 & 6) form two-level units?
@@awumayes lets make sure we build the entire world for a small percentage of the people And make sure all the schools teach only at the level of the mentally disabled
In Québec, these older apartment buildings usually have a front indoor staircase (although sometimes outdoor) and a set of outdoor staircase behind the building, often associated with a balcony. That allow for less corridors and more windows per unit.
It's wild that a second outdoor staircase isn't sufficient in building codes for even a 3 story building. The 2 story house I grew up in didn't have anything to help get down after I would have had to climb out a window - good luck to anyone who wasn't a skinny kid with knees that could survive a jump to the ground.
Honestly I think outdoor stairs/attached elevators is a good solution, in part because they sound more pleasant to go up and down. The ones inside get stuffy lol.
One thing that keeps my brain twisted is why do so many appartment complexes have flat roofs with absolutely nothing on top. Imagine the social area they could've built up there.
Anything placed on a roof adds weight making reinforcement necessary. There need to he barriers in terms of higher walls or fencing, limits on the type of structure and maximum limit of people, plus soundproofing for the top floor units. The costs all add up, as well as extra insurance . In my area, very low rise, newly built condos are common but not all builders opted for rooftop amenities.
The obvious answer is cost, but I agree the benefits would greatly outweigh the costs if more of the flatroof buildings had rooftop solar, gardens, or patios.
Another reason is that its very rare for there to actually be nothing on top of a building like your describing. Its almost always where the building has air conditioners, water tanks for sprinklers, electrical transformers, and other machinery. The open space is left open so that when something needs to be fixed a repair person can move around and get to the things they need to access. Having a truly empty but flat roof is pretty rare, at least in the US. And based on pictures I have seen from many other countries, I would guess thats the case in many of them as well.
@@milamberarial This is true, although at least in what I've seen, there's often enough space to cover at least half the roof with "something" while still leaving room for HVAC and other equipment, as well as space to access/maintain them.
it's funny because a german youtube channel just did a video on why german cities are so ugly, and some aren't. It was because after the second world war there were some that re-built as it used to be while others built for the car. Nowadays, the cities that built for the car are wide open spaces with some boxy buildings, lots of concrete, that have to adhere to strict laws that govern everything but looks. Older cities are more human-sized with lit ped zones and people are around which gives a sense of security
One of my friend's dads used to joke that Stuttgart (one of those car cities) was destroyed twice, once when it was bombed, once when it was rebuilt :>
it's not just cars, older cities had no planning and building regulations, so everything was much more organic, things evolved based on the needs of the ppl who lived there. The downside is obviously pollution and excessive congestion when everyone started driving. But I think instead of planning and regulating around what ppl can/can't do we should instead regulate specifically around things that cause problems, like air/noise pollution, where cars are allowed and better public transit.
@@Tracomaster maybe in some places, in NS we still have restrictions around parking and the staircase thing which basically prevents everyone but 4 development companies from building anything.
I have lived in three-storey walls and now, in a two storey fourplex (with additional basement studio units). I like the solution they came up with for having two staircases: One in the front and one in back. No hallway connects the staircases; instead the staircases are separated and accessed through front and side/ back doors within the units. It means it is easier to have multi-br units with windows.
Given that Switzerland has the lowest fire deaths per capita and no limit on the height of single stair buildings I am totally comfortable doing away with the rule altogether.
I'm from Switzerland. The standards of how to build something are, let's say, different to Canada. At least that is what I noticed when I lived in Vancouver in the mid nineties. You probably are not allowed to build a house, not even a single family home, in Switzerland like in Canada. And if you would try it, it would cost you a leg and an arm to bring that up to code here.😮
@@herbie1975if that's true, that's crazy. Average Canadian building standards are significantly more strict than the US. Maybe that says more about the US than it does about Switzerland though.
Here in New Zealand, we have other means to stop or limit a fire. Such as the stair and elevator casement must be in concrete, the wall linings are all fireproofed to withstand I think 2 hours, to allow you to escape, and all doors are fire rated and sealed again to 2 hours, plus all floors must have working fire appliances or water hoses, and a break glass panel to alert the fire brigade system.
In my building (13 stories high), they shoved the two staircases into each other, at least from the second floor up. You can't see that from the inside, because they are sealed of by concrete walls, so if one staircase is filled with smoke, or even on fire, the second one isn't affected by it, besides literally winding itself around the other one. The access doores on the floors are seperated by the length of one stair between two floors. on the same side of the building it changes every other floor which staircase you enter. Very space efficient, but still safe.
Another point is that today it is difficult in most cities to find an apartment complex that isn't built next to, or near, some undesirable commercial location, highways or railroads. The smaller apartment buildings of years ago were accepted into residential areas and didn't require being located near busy streets in order to service their heavier traffic flows.
No, the "smaller apartment buildings of years ago" were in neighborhoods that were mixed use or close to commercial areas or had public transport to handle the larger volume of people, so there was no "heavier traffic flow". It's not an apartment issue, it's a traffic/public transport engineering issue.
If you buy a single family home in the suburbs, you don't want an apartment building next to it. It affects the property values; the apartment building could turn Section 8; and it creates more traffic/noise.
This is very well put together. Investigative journalism that isn't seen too often these days in the mainstream media. I like how you take a position but look at the other side's as well - also not seen much these days. Thank you for your work!
One curious Dane here. Some of those smaller narrow buildings in Denmark originally had two staircases. One from the street connecting apartments left to rigth, and one to back yard where the outhouse was, and the "night men" could pick up the valuable resource for fertilizing the crops. When indoor plumbing was introduced, you could remove one staircase. Divide the space and reconstruct the apartments with bathrooms. The condition for this was that the remaining staircase had to be fireproofed. So metal/concrete allowing people more time to escape, and windows must be able to open and big enough for emergency exit by firemen ladders.
I'd be interested to know how Seattle and East Asian cities handle earthquake safety with a single point of egress. In Eastern Canada and Europe I understand that fire is the primary concern, but Pacific Rim cities have more disasters to balance and I would love to know how this is also taken into account.
In Japan each apartment has a patio and each patio has a hatch with a ladder, the holes are offset per floor so if you slip and fall you don't fall all the down.
In Japan at least, modern building standards require buildings to be able to survive extreme earthquakes without collapsing, potentially up to Magnitude 9 (there is a different Japanese earthquake scale that doesn't map to the Magnitude scale that well). So fire is still the primary evacuation concern, the advise for Earthquakes is to stay inside until the it passes and only then exit.
Taiwan buildings are built earthquake- and typhoon-resistant. The stairs are positioned in a way that they provide good cross-bracing. New buildings generally have rebar sticking out the side, so that the next building can be tied to it (making all the buildings on the block support and protect each other). A lot of buildings in Seattle had a seismic retrofit in the early 2000s. Earthquakes come with so little warning, fire exits are not really helpful unless the earthquake somehow causes a fire (possible but rare). Typhoons come with lots of warning, but you really need to be indoors when one arrives. In both cases, you really need the building to protect you.
There are similar earthquake-survivability standards in the Seattle area as others are describing, and the codes requiring multiple forms of egress in the US and Canada for any reason were born out of tragedies, so the video notwithstanding (which I think primarily comes down to putting inviting aesthetics above redundant safety measures), the current codes are for the best. Among other reasons, younger children and elderly people will often have a much harder time with hatches and dangling escape devices than with stairs and stairwells.
I live in Ecuador and everything is made of concrete blocks. I've never heard of a house fire. We don't even have smoke alarms because fires are so unheard of. We do worry about earthquakes, though.
"we don't even have smoke alarms" is definitely not something to brag about. It's probably because the government isn't enforcing basic fire code and the developers are pocketing the money for themselves. Btw, earthquakes cause fires.
There are travel distance limits as well, from the units to closest staircase, but I do agree that 2 staircases for just 2-level apartments is overkill. Then again, it's hard to find a 2 storey apartment nowadays. I think having the staircase exposed to the outside, like the one shown in the video, is a great concept and should be adopted more.
The exterior stairway you note in the video is a fire escape, much too steep and weak to ever be used normally, And there is almost certainly one attached to the back of the building as well to give the rear facing apartments an emergency exit. The core of the building is very likely just a normal stairway. In older buildings, as shown, there may or may not be an elevator. It is referred to as a 'walk-up'. The REASON for the two stairway rule is fire escape. If one stairway is compromised, the second is your escape path. And he is mostly correct, two dedicated stairways with connecting hall to service all apartments PLUS an elevator, dictates a larger building.
2 stories is just a normal ingle-family detached home. If it gets converted to apartments, then we’d have one. But even Canada requires that only for over two stories.
There are problems with that metal staircase. They are only used ever used as fire escapes and they never get maintained. The bolts and clamps attaching them to the building rust off leaving no support. Yearly inspection and maintenance/repair is required but that isn't done by many property owners, thus leaving a life safety issue for the renters.
This is another case of UA-cam’s “how did I end up here? But I’m so glad I did.” Fascinating video that put context to things I never took the time to notice. Especially when you got to the Seattle section, because there is a big increase in skinny apartments, and I had a friend who lived in that building you featured. I’m going to be so much more conscious of this now.
I recently visited a community housing projects in their new build home. I wondered why they build a very brutalist hallway/staircase while every other aspect of the building was intended to be very eco-friendly, sustainable and constructed with cross-laminated timber. It was exactly for that reason. They were allowed to build a 4-story apartment building with only one staircase but it had to be rather wide and from a solid core (concrete)
You should make a video on basements too. Here in the US you have to have an escape route for each floor where in other countries you only need 1. This is why in America houses only have 1 basement level while in France for instance they have entire houses underground
There are a lot of underground parking lots and storage units in France, but underground houses ? Maybe a bunch of very peculiar architect houses, and houses built on an incline in hilly and mountainous areas, with floors that are "below ground" on one side and over ground on the other (which are not legally considered underground), but "by nature", underground levels are considered unfit for housing (article R1331-17 of the Code de la Santé publique, the text is available for free on Légifrance, you can let your browser automatically translate it), the article (R1331-18 of the Code de la Santé publique) that authorises them on certain condition is recent (effective since October 2023), and constitutes an exception for certain specific cases of underground levels, no the rule, as far as I know. I never studied law in any capacity, I just looked on the Internet because I was curious, so there very well may be things I am missing, I just looked for "appartement sous-sol légifrance" on Google and read what came up.
For many apartment buildings in Montreal, the stairs are outside the building, helping maximize interior space. Of course, you have to be careful with the slippery metallic stairs in winter, plus some winding stairs are not ideal to transport furniture, but it does save on space.
There are many theories about why this design is so prominent here in Montreal, but the most compelling reason is that it had to do with the tax code, which set rates based on the internal square footage. Outside stairs effectively reduced the tax owed, and tax was only to be paid for "useful" space. This was good for landlords and for apartment owners. Less compelling is that the Church was leery about creating so much secluded space where people could get up to no good in private, but still not in a dwelling per se. That seems weird, but make no mistake that the Church did have influence on all aspects of society and government until the 1960s, so it's plausible.
@@MichaelBoyle514 I've heard the "no hanky panky spaces" explanation as well. The tax code seems like a more reasonable explanation to me, but it's telling that a lot of people believe it's due to the former level of social control by the church.
As an architect in Vancouver I can confirm stairs are not the limiting factor. The cost of construction is so expensive that developers can’t make money off smaller buildings. That’s why they build larger condo buildings so their percentage of sellable area is higher.
An interesting comment. But looking at plans of buildings that I lived in, in Canada, the USA and the UK, the latter single stair walk up seemed to have as large a percentage of sellable area as the American and Canadian buildings with hallways and multiple stairs. Hallways seem to take an enormous amount of space, and aren't needed in many single stair designs. What are you seeing for sellable percentages of the two designs?
I'm sorry but this comment is just bogus. If you're an architect in Vancouver then you've surely dealt with the city when it comes to zoning bylaws quite a bit and it's obvious that the laws are designed so that smaller investors can't get a piece of the pie. I've owned a number of rental properties and bought and sold land, have dealt with municipalities in Ontario trying to divide/add units or sever properties and if the red tape wasn't there there would be good money to make on small developments. If you can buy a parcel of land with a single house on it, sit on it for 5 years and make money then you can and should be able to knock it down, build a low rise mixed use/residential building and divide that building into 6 units. Simply to rent it out it would still be an incredibly good investment. If you could sever those units and give each of them a seperate title it would be even more profitable. The problem is that its small minded thinking that only people worth 8+ figures can create housing that people want to buy and is also profitable. Real estate investment and development is about adding value and finding best use for a parcel regardless of the size or format you follow. For every person worth 100 million there's 200 people worth 1 million that want to develop and make profits. And doing it small scale would take away a vast majority of peoples need for public transportation because you could actually build neighborhoods within walking distance of jobs and amenities. The system is rigged plain and simple. The actual cost of building a multi residential building vs a large single family really isn't that much. Fire separation, kitchens, bathroom costs all pail in comparison to the permits, the foundation and structure, you can do a kitchen and a bathroom for 15k and fire seperate for 5k. For a 3 storey multi that's peanuts compared to all the proposals and nonsense
@@JOIHIINIHey man you are 100% right. And unfortunately both are true. What you are addressing is the sort of the underlying reality of development in Vancouver. Thankfully zoning bylaws are changing to better address smaller lots. Density does not come from towers, most urbanists and architects know this. It comes from growing the average density of a city up as a whole (see Portland, Savannah, Chicago, etc.). There are many factors as to why it’s difficult to develop small skinnier buildings. My point is, I don’t see the stair being the main factor. As you pointed out, red tape is a big factor, but talking to real developers, it’s hard to secure funding (even govt grants for affordable housing) if the right efficiency is not met (about 78-83%). It’s simply just expensive to build in Canada.
@@bearcubdaycare a long condo building that is 150’ long will have 2 stairs in your classic Canadian Condo. A “European” style building that is 150’ long but is “5 separate buildings” will have 5 stairs in it. It’s actually not more efficient… given they are the same height and width, etc.
If you check the architecture in Argentina. By code, each building, no matter how many stories has to have 1 or 2 side substractions of the block to have natural ventilations depending the depth extension of the building in the terrain, which regularly is 9 1/3 x 35 meters. This makes it easier to build units with 5,4,3,2 and 1 bedroom appartments on the same floor. If you go to Buenos Aires, you´ll see every neighboorhood (depending of the population density, but its a fact that in every neighborhood) you´ll see as regular 15 floor residential buildings if they are 10 years older or more and 6 to 15 floor buildings (depending if located in avenues or regular streets) in every single block of the city. Also, every ground floor is destinated to comercial use, so it makes the 15 min city concept work more organically and decreases the need of personal transportation to get most things you might need.
It's telling that even Australia has looser single stair rules than North America, when they are so similar in sprawl and development to Canada and to a lesser extent the USA.
I'm in Canada SE coast. I would have figured Australia housing would be heavily regulated due to the fires you seems to have all the time. We have them too but you guys seems to get more vicious ones is it the type of trees like eucalyptus or something else?
@@dg-hughes I live in Toronto but have lived in Australia. I presume the emphasis is on reasonable and effective regulations. Number of stairs is probably not going to help in an outdoor bushfire. Also, I don't think the bushfires have ever made it to cities like Sydney or Brisbane just the smoke.
@@jacktattersall9457This is just an educated opinion but those cities are surrounded by bush. So the bushfires start but they are put out quickly and have allot more prevention work done.
@@dg-hughesit is true that our eucalyptus trees burn extremely fast due to their high oil content in the leaves, but the majority of higher density urban areas don’t have too many native trees around that would spread fires that quickly. towards the suburbs however that’s where fire risk becomes a really serious issue
1. The issue is not the number of stair cases per se, it's the total admissible height of the building, paired with the number of inhabitant at any given moment. 2. In Spain, it's even required that the common distributing hallway must have an exterior access point for fire-fighters in case of a fire in the building, but it is also admissible to have one stair case that is totally sectored (fire protected) from the rest of the building including an area for people with disabilities that can stay there until they can get rescued and having the same staircase as access points for firefighters access with a ladder. 3. The examples you have shown of one bedroom apartment/studios makes a poor example, in fact those example is a reflect to the housing market requirements. For example, if you considered each studio of you shown as a module, you could join 2 horizontal modules to make one bedroom apartments with a totally separate space for kitchen, living and kitchen with enough space for a bathroom and a storage area. 4. You can also take revise Le Corbouiser's work for Unite de Habitacion in France, where he intelligently reconfigured the apartments in an L-shaped apartment (as a in Tetris), and each two shaped apartments are joined in a vertical ring with an empty space in the middle that acts as the space for hallway, to access the stairs and elevators, with results in a significant reduction of space destined to hallways for the whole building, and a significant reduction of the number of stops for the elevators. 5. Also your examples do not take into account that if there enough space you could have a patio for ventilation, which will provide ventilation for the interior of the living spaces (cross ventilation)
The low-key coolest part of this video is the part where you explain that Canadian cities just stopped burning down sometime in the early 1900s. That illustrates the point about fireproofing technology better than anything else!
Actually it speaks more to how people stopped using so many coal fires, fireplaces, candles and oil lamps in the home and switched to safer technologies, like, well, Edison's electricity and steam after the 1880s. This still caused fires but fewer and fewer each year as the technology was improved and fire in the home was slowly phased out. To this day, most house fires are still caused by candles and burning cigarettes.
@@butterbeans182 makes sense! Though, I think the point being made in the video that I was picking up on is that because of better fireproofing, those fires that do happen don't spread nearly as fast or as far.
Something you might find interesting is an apartment building I know here in the Netherlands. It has 12 living layers but only 4 hallways running through the building, as all apartments are made up of 1.5 floors. So they have the full front to back on one floor, and then either have half a floor up, or down with their own little private stairs. the apartments wrap themselves around the hallway with you having the floor below, and your neighbour opposite having the floor above. Now this is a high building with 12 floors (+ ground floor, so 13 for Americans), but you could also do this with 6.
I grew up in a sort of archology here in Canada where every apartment had two floors, with entrances on both floors, it was a 4 storey building in some spots, and sometimes the twisting hallways led to doors that you would think are doors to more tunnels/exits/pool areas/garages, but it led into a persons upstair hallway by accident. We could go thru tunnels between the 3 buildings, so in winter we could go swimming without ever going outside. It was amazing.
In europe high density housing buildings are made similar to this new condos in the us. Only prices are higher despite lower wages and no fixed rate mortgages.
You have to be the only person in the world who can make this subject so entertaining. Loved the video. I really DID laugh out loud at your reaction to being caught putting the lighter up to the matress. Thanks for making my day. Great video!
Uytae, your videos are so influential now that the BC gov is announced plans to allow single stair buildings even before your video was released. Well done!
I'm totally okay with three-story single-stair apartments. It has to be cheaper to make one fireproof stair than to make two non-fire-proof ones. IMHO smaller, three-floor apartments are more appropriate as infill in established single-unit neighbourhoods than taller, larger ones.
You know what you could do to get around the rule? Let apartments have a back door. Have a staircase one one side of the building, and a second staircase on the other side of the building. (And maybe have a little patio/courtyard on the back side.) Then you don't need a hallway between the two stairs because residents will have access to both staircases.
That is how almost all buildings are in Chicago, with back porches connected by stairs, and you still see lots of single lot apartment buildings being built. I think it helps that we have alleyways though so if the building is on fire you can go out the back and move directly away from the building.
In some places the fire & building codes already require two exits from each unit. The kicker in many building layouts is that each exit not only must be separated by a fire door from the other but also that each exit must "have access to" a separate staircase from the other exit of the same unit. If the type of layout you are implying is chosen this shouldn't be a problem, but unfortunately people have a preference for more square units. 🤷
@@ekulio Fellow Chicagoan here (one who silently fumed when we were skipped during the 'North American cities that burned down' list--I mean, really?--okay, side-rant ended). The biggest concern, of course, is that Chicago's back porches are often... less than well-built, or at least well-maintained. I think they finally got ahead of it--at least, I haven't seen a slurry of "porch collapses during party" stories like we had some years back. And yes, the Chicago Porch absolutely works for these sorts of buildings. Note that even many of the European ones he highlights in the video technically have two 'staircases'--those things sticking on the front of all those buildings are fire escapes, and arguably are more useful than a second indoor staircase would be (as the latter would be more easily blocked by a widespread fire on a lower floor--running past the window of a burning apartment may not be comfortable, but it sure as hell beats running through a lobby that's gone up in flames).
You need to have a city designed with alleyways for this to be feasible. Cities that do have huge alleyway systems, like Chicago, do this already as a standard.
I live in the Netherlands and I might be a bit over the top, but I've made sure to only rent ground level of first story apartments. Ever since I've made enough money to have the option to choose this. I live close enough to the ground that even if the staircase was blocked, I could safely exit the house through my balcony or a window and land in the bushes below.
Every houses I lived in in montréal had at least two staircases but no hallways between them, thought every units had either two doors giving acces to two different unconnected staircase, or one door giving acces to a stair case outside staircase connecting to their balcony and there was never any problem with having quite a few bedrooms...
Uytae with another banger! I'm an urban planner that is trying to figure out how to engage students and get them to start thinking about planning issues of our day. Uytae's videos are exactly what is needed to bring awareness and garner engagement while being entertaining and fun.
In 2nd or 3rd floor building, in case of fire, you can use rope or bed sheet or whatever to climb down via the windows (since there are tons of windows anyway).
Sure, if you don't mind dying or becoming paralyzed in the process. A fall from the third floor on a hard surface is, for all practical purposes, life threatening to lethal.
@@lepidoptera9337 dude, who ever said you jump down from 3rd floor? I said you use rope (or cables, bedsheet, or anything) to climb down. OR you can buy a proper climbing rope and equipment and have lots of practice beforehand. Or buy those inflatable emergency slide.
@@casekocsk I am sure you are the kind of kid who managed to climb up the rope in phys ed class on the first attempt. That makes you one in five or ten if you were an untrained boy and none in the entire class if you were an untrained girl. Now you are a 200lbs untrained adult who is panicking. What are your chances of securing a bedsheet (you are kidding, right... you have a twenty foot bedsheet????) correctly and then climbing down on that without falling? And of course you are carrying your wife, three kids, grandparents and the family dog on your back. Right? Here, kid. Let me give you some more attention. You are hilarious. ;-)
See, my city kept the two stair case requirement, but allowed them to be 'outside as long as they are covered'. It's created some rather interesting designs.
Australia has the opposite problem to this. There are heaps of people in sharehouses who want single bedroom apartments but there are hardly any on the market.
Careful what you wish for. In Dublin it's all they build (because the Irish don't understand apartments) so the next step up from your overpriced 400sqft shoebox is a family home in the burbs that young people can no longer afford.
Very interesting and insightful video, thanks. I grew up in the New York City area, and a lot of the older housing stock in denser areas was built this way. Narrow "brownstones" or rowhouses fit on lots often only 25' wide. But buildings from that era also usually had exterior steel "fire escapes" that are similarly a fixture in these old neighborhoods, which wound up giving the unit 2 means of egress after all. Just like you see in the first scenes of your video. I think smaller lots, even if they only have one to three units, also have a benefit in keeping more opportunities available for a person to own their own home. And I agree that having smaller apartment units can fit better into an existing neighborhood. Some areas have also required one unit of parking for each dwelling, but designers have accommodated this with ground level parking within the footprint of the building. There are well done examples that still contribute to an attractive street scape in places like Hoboken and Jersey City, and still manage to fit a number of units onto compact urban lots. Builders do that here because they have to work with smaller lots, and are fortunate holdovers from older communities. Whenever a developer can get a larger lot, or combine several lots, there must be other economies or efficiencies in play because they almost always seem to build the large footprint apartments. But I'm all for more use of point access buildings for at least 3 or 4 story units since they make smaller scale buildings much more viable.
I'm up for de-extreming this code. My city only has these single-point access buildings because I think they were built before this code. New developments are huge and even when they're urban they take up large portions of our blocks.. little to no fine-grain development! It will be very hard for us to make beautiful fine-grained urban areas like we want to without amending our codes to make the development of new narrow buildings viable. And then we can maybe focus a little on making them look nice and traditional, too. I would love to live in a wall-to-wall narrow apartment/commercial/office building in a dense portion of my city but they're so old and there are so few so they're still expensive!
Imagine walking around those big things, they're like walls. Residents might have backdoors to go through, but every other pedestrian has to walk around. Is especially annoying living in a trailer park with one entrance, even the stores 50 feet away take a mile of walking to get to. It's ridiculous.
@@haydentravis3348 I hate that, I have one such neighborhood near me, not only are the apartments not built on top of the neighboring shopping center. You have to go out to the access road down to the main street then walk around the apartment just to get there adding an extra 10 minutes walking time.
This begs another question , WHAT HAPPENED TO FIRE ESCAPES ? they are outside the building so they can not fill with smoke and gave s sort of balcony to people who otherwise would have no access outside , they were metal and could not burn . The fire escape also could allow for more ways out than just 2 and they were widely separated around the building meaning at least one would not be engulfed in flame or smoke .They were of a standard design so they were inexpensive and could be removed from an old building and put on a new building .
Here in NYC they are not maintained well and haven't really proven to save lives in fires. Advances in sprinklers, ladder trucks, and fire-resistant building techniques have made them obsolete.
@@danielfischer4244re: not maintained well - I feel like this could be overcome by just requiring an annual inspection similar to sprinkler systems/fire extinguishers
I watched an excellent video explaining why fire escapes are no longer used, it should be easy to find. Enclosed stairs are much safer. Some of the risks include having fire burst out a window onto the fire escape, burning and anyone on that level at that time, making the metal burning hot and trapping everyone above from moving down, possibly choking them with smoke.
Seattle architect here... The biggest challenge for small apartment buildings is their lack of economies of scale. The market rent is more or less the same as the rent in larger buildings, but larger buildings can be built for less money per square foot. Larger buildings can also include amenities like fitness centers, dog parks, business centers, etc, which take up a small percentage of the total space, but increase resident appeal. It's kind of the same effect as the problem with the missing, Missing Middle projects, because the numbers don't work. With the small apartment buildings, the numbers either don't work, or just barely work. When the numbers do work, it's because it's relatively high end housing.
@@Currywurst-zo8oo They exist because that's all smaller investors can afford. However, the reason for the missing, Missing Middle housing is that the numbers easily end up negative. Even something as small as a 6 plex is going to take around $500,000 cash. You could invest that in an index fund and get a sure return, or risk it all on a 6 plex.
0:03, I can't get over how seamlessly it blends in to the rest of the building. I honestly would've never clocked it as an apartment in the first place
What an excellent video!!! So important to share these seemingly random but important facts about what is holding back building better cities and more housing!
Wow I was kinda blown away by the quality of this video! Very informative and excellent graphics and editing. It was genuinely eye opening for me to see that section about apartment windows
I do have a small issue with the portrayal of single stairway building allowing for many more bedrooms due to the massive increase in windows. This is only a factor if the single stairway building doesn't abut against other buildings. Most of the buildings you showed were sandwiched together which really only allows the 2 walls that don't to have those windows. In my opinion having 1 big building with 100 units and 2 staircases probably saves space overall compared to 10 buildings with 100 units and 10 staircases. If you can get the bigger plot of land then the bigger building will probably be more efficient. That being said if you can't get the whole plot then the smaller units do have the advantage like you said.
A single stairway could have one or two large multi bedroom units on a floor, even with no setback from neighbouring buildings, while a double loaded building would have to split the same space in two (unless is was an end unit). So for example you could have 2 or 3 bedrooms with rear windows, and another bedrom and kitchen/common area with front windows - while a central hallway would maybe result in only 2-bed units (bedrooms on either side of central kitchen/living room) in a similar space. Theres definitely tradeoffs, and a sufficiently larger lot will be more homes per area with a double loaded corridor, but is limited in its ability to have many 3+ bedroom units. The time and effort to assemble land and build a single large building also affects the price of development - smaller buildings carry less risk and can be sold sooner so the developer spends less on financing compared to build costs. Smaller apartments can also be more incrementally built to increase density in an area (replacing one home with six), while a larger apartment might be more difficult to sell in an area that doesnt already have high demand (replacing 4 homes with 60).
The problem is the hall connecting the two staircases. Yes buildings abutting each side give only two exposed walls. Add a hallway and you're down to one. You can do tricks with multiple floor units, so a hallway isn't needed on every floor, but that's another complications. And many tenants don't want an in-unit staircase cutting into their space and bifurcating their living space.
I lived most of my life in 13-storey buildings (3 different) with 1 staircase 2 elevators. These are pretty common in Brazil. The first one was an X shaped building with 8 apts/floor, all 2-bedrooms, second was identical but with 3 bedrooms per apt. Fire spreading was a non concern since all corridors between apartments were granite clad with no flammable materials.
@@EvelynDayless Good point. I once lived in a 10-story apartment that had two fires while I lived in it. There were two staircases and two elevators. Individual units were somewhat fireproof, and both staircases had cement walls and airtight, fireproof doors on all floors. Even with these precautions and very little air movement between floors, the smoke was unpleasant.
@@EvelynDayless Sure, but if nothing burns, you don't have much fire. It's curtains and furnites catching fire, not the building. And it very very rarely jumps from one appartment to the next, so the fire doesn't get larger.
I'm from Finland, country for top fire deaths. Most of these accidents happen in small houses. Reasons we are on top are saunas and cold weather so we need much of warming.
Plenty of especially older 3-4-5 story apartment buildings here in Copenhagen has a front stair and a rear stair that are separate, with the rear one often being more compact and less presentable overall. This of course takes up space, only as they aren't connected to each other by a hallway they do not create a division on each floor. Surely something like that could work in the US also. The two stair case solution went away with buildings having stairs made fire proof ie. using stone rather that wood, and just the use of stone or concrete overall - something which is the norm in most of Europe even when talking one family homes.
The back staircase was also for the usage of the outhouse before the times of indoor plumbing so it wasn't just fireproofing that made them unnecessary.
This was the perfect answer to a question I hadn't yet fully thought to ask. What outdated codes and building practices are preventing small, low-cost apartments from being viable infill projects to downtown areas across North American cities? This is great work and helps draw awareness to the fire safety aspect. Narrow street alleys are often prevented from becoming a reality due to concern about large fire trucks accessing the street. This forces us to keep building wide "stroads" through our residential neighborhoods, as mentioned in the book Strong Towns.
there are plenty of historical buildings in inner cities that people could live on but, no one wants to because of the demographics of these places. thats much more of an issue than building codes. same reason why public transport in america is bad too.
Doesn't help that, for a lot of people in America, "demographics" begins and ends with total population density and the fact we have as much unused contingent land area to use, our culture began to take that for granted and now we're obsessed with solitude and personal bubbles as much as possible
Fire safety codes. Bedroom windows. You are more likely to get trapped in a bedroom because if you’re awake, you are more likely to notice a fire and go use the stairs that are required to be nearby because your side of the building might be the one on fire and you don’t want to get jammed up in the single existing staircase with all the other people on the other side. An acceptable alternative to the second interior staircase would be having the fire escape all across one or two sides of the building. But that still works best on the bedroom windows, so you don’t have to jump out and kill yourself trying to escape the flames if you wake up with your apartment on fire. Which still restricts where the bedrooms can go. They have to line up somewhere. Either on the back of the building where most of the extra space on the lot usually is, over the parking. And you could descend to the roof of the parking structure and then have an access way down from there. Or both ends of the building could have the bedrooms/fire escapes, which still results in a wider building space, but the fire escapes could wrap around a bit as well to let the bedrooms be placed in more places.
I will gladly take our strict fire codes because many a person died for those codes to be in place today. It’s nice to know I have multiple exits from my building and windows inside the bedroom to escape from.
@@LRM12o8 Those fire resistant materials have costs as well. Stone, brick, concrete and other masonry are more likely to collapse in earthquakes and some kinds of storms (without specific structural enhancements). Cement (base material of concrete) also has a huge environmental footprint. In addition, structures made mostly of concrete, brick, stone, steel, and other forms of masonry are hard to make energy efficient. This last point alone is why in the USA you'll increasingly frequently find newer buildings with steel & concrete cores; steel reinforced wood floor structures with cementboard (fire & water protection); wood walls with gypsum-based drywall; an outer wrap of insulation; and a brick, steel with glass, composite, or concrete fascia. Compromises will be required, the real question is how to balance it all out. In the USA we chose "will likely burn to the ground eventually if the fire isn't put out, but hopefully gives everybody a minimum of 20 minutes to escape" as our basis for standards.
@@wilson4180 was hoping someone would say this. It's easy to say "hurr gurr muh regulations" but what few regulations the US has are usually written in blood.
I would imagine that with the advent of new, non-flamable building materials and other technologies, you could simply start relaxing some restrictions--such as rather than simply requiring the two separate staircases, make the requirement that you adhere to either these old codes or build a certain percentage of the complex out of non-flamable materials. That way instead of completely phasing out old codes, you could update them continually as building techniques evolve.
My guess it’s the classics: zoning laws, setback ordinances, parking requirements, minimum floor size, minimum lot size, maximum dwelling height, maximum units per acre, blah blah blah the American specialties. Regulate the good stuff away, don’t regulate the bad stuff
Given the recent discussion around this (which Uytae has definitely seen) and political changes in our province (BC), I suspect a big part of this video will be about single-stair reform. Canada is the most restrictive developed country in the world around that, and the US is tied for second. So not any of the above, but it does somewhat tie into accessibility because larger elevators required by building codes in the US and Canada can affect the form and viability of apartment projects. Edit: yes, yes it was :)
@@DarrienGlasserthey do. New construction for multi family or even renovation in our city iirc 3+ stories has to have an elevator and ramp access. Of course some developers are trying to get around it or shoving the ramp and elevator in the back of the building next to the trash dumpsters
Man, these are great videos! I really hope some people with power see these and start making better decisions and policies and become willing to take calculated risks rather than follow the status quo that most of them, unfortunately, do. You’re doing everyone in the AEC industry and the general public a tremendous service!
6:00: The scissor staircase also doesn't fix this problem. Sure, there are two staircases, but if one of them is full of flames or smoke, BOTH are full of flames or smoke.
Given cases like what happened at Grenfell tower (only one staircase), I think that regulators might be in the right on this one. Fireproofing only goes so far and the safest thing to do in a fire is get out of the building. Having fire codes that focus on that is a good thing.
@@ac1646 Sort of. The main focus of fire codes for apartment buildings in the US is alerting people inside of a fire, so alarms, and getting them out, usually meaning multiple staircases with a minimum separation to keep the exit route from being blocked. The focus in the UK was on isolating apartments from each other to keep fires from spreading within the building. Before the cladding was put on, that might have worked, but the cladding and shitty new window frames gave it a way to spread, and the firefighters told them to stay put instead of escaping early on when they might have been able to. As the fire spread, it cut off their ability to escape through the one staircase. If there had been another way out and the first focus had been telling people to leave the building as soon as the fire was detected, the death toll would have been lower and even the UK's fire investigators have said that.
@@JohnSmith-dp2jd Hi John. Thanks for your response. It's heartbreaking that the focus here in the UK is to 'stay put'. It's a mindset that was so entrenched, that no-one in charge thought to change plans when the fire clearly wasn't under control from the outset. I understand the idea behind the US two stair system, but its true value is in the ethos of 'get everyone out.' I do believe the one staircase that was available in Grenfell would have been enough if the thought process was different to the one we had. 😢😢 RIP the 72
Two ways down rather than a hard line of two staircases. Sharing an outdoor emergency set of staircases between buildings would be one way. Fires are of course a major concern. Since I live in the US, more escape routes from a shooting are also nice.
They built a nice square recently in Alpharetta near Atlanta. They made one residential apartment I'm impressed with there. It looks like old fashioned brick rowhouses from New York City, with large windows, nice decorative trim, etc. But it's actually a large, like a whole block long, like in your video, apartment building. And they have a parking garage in the middle of the building too for residents, with an entrance in the back so you dont see it. So it's a modern large building, disguised to look like a bunch of vintage brick rowhouses. Pretty cool. Edit- Also i forgot to say the ground floor in front is shops.
We have these types of apartments in the Northside of Chicago. I lived in 2 different ones back in the 1990s, in the Roger's Park neighborhood. Both were absolutely beautiful buildings.
I liked the bike storage in the building in Seattle. When I lived in apartments, I always had to carry the bike inside my unit if I wanted safe storage.
I lived in one apartment complex that had a basement room for bikes. Anyone who had a bike could use it. I have friends who have to store their bike on their balcony or indoors, so they installed strong hooks on an inside wall to hang the bike out of the way.
I love the layout of the house you visited 😍 it's nice to have a small courtyard in the middle so that they can open two windows (front and back) to create an air current and effectively ventilate the apartment !
The thing is, there's NOTHING stopping buildings from being built like that today, just with a second stairwell. The reason they don't is it costs more (less units available). The two staircases thing is important. Throwing up the fire deaths per capita chart was VERY misleading since it didn't include TYPE of housing, trying to compare a bunch of rural wood frame homes to countries where concrete construction is far more common really skews the results. Show me a charge that compares apples to apples, i.e. number of deaths per capita per building type, i.e. low rise, high rise, detached home, etc. Only then can you push that turning down the requirements is safe.
@@repatch43 I'm not sure what your point is, but I live in Western Europe so ... concrete buildings and single staircases in homes and "small" apartments is normal to me.
@@killiansirishbeer My point is we don't have data showing whether two stair cases saves lives or not. The chart as presented didn't prove it one way or another. And risk of fire death might be VERY different when you've got a structure made out of concrete vs one made out of wood. We need proper data before making a change to the rules, we can't just say 'ahh, it'll be alright'
@@repatch43 i live in Austria, which ranked 3rd on the list. The next door neighbour of a relative had a fire and his appartment only suffered minor damages. Above and below were more impacted because of the water. If you sufficiently fire proof the buildings the fires are contained. Of course it would be better to have the stats you asked for, but you would think the general stats would show this. More people can die in an apartment fire than a single family house fire.
You did a good job on this one! I want to live in an apt that has 2 or 3 directions for light to come in! Think of the mental health benefits! And having smaller buildings, with more aesthetically pleasing apts to live in also creates a stronger sense of community for those who live in them 😊 I love some of the co-op housing in Denmark, where foot traffic from apts flow into open, interesting public areas of the building.
Excellent video! I've also found that one of the biggest issues in eliminating or scaling back this building code or other codes is the "5 over 1" design; this allows for stick framing multiple stories above a ground floor concrete structure. Like you mentioned, if we had stronger, more fire resistant apartment/mutli-zoned buildings, that would ease people's minds about the possibility of a flame up. The "5 over 1" design is huge in the US, especially down here in the CLT area as it's easy to manipulate previous designs to fit a new land plot and it's much cheaper to build. I'm all for affordability for both the developer and apartment resident, but it's SO boring from a design and uniqueness standpoint. Europe and Japan definitely have us beat in city beautification. Plus, the smaller the apartment or multi-zoned buildings, the easier it is to design walkable cities.
For a large apartment block, you could give each unit both front and rear windows by removing the central corridor and putting a staircase between each unit and one at each end, for N+1 staircases (where N is the number of units). End units, with adjacent exterior walls, could be made half depth (maybe even a bit wider than the central units) and still have two window walls for N-1 staircases. Each unit would then have access to two staircases. It wouldn't take up much extra room, because the extra space required for the stairs would replace the space required for the common corridor that is now removed.
That building in Seattle looks amazing. I always wondered why finding three bedroom units was so difficult (and expensive) and why they are always on the end of the hallway. Now it makes sense. I would love to have my family live in a place like that one shown. Instead we are in suburbia.
Montreal's very quaint walk-ups with exterior staircases was a simple way to maximize the interior space. That said, I still don't know if this is the best solution for a city with a long and snowy winter
Excellent content and thanks for illuminating these issues so that hopefully it can spark discussion on how to more effectively deal with our housing crisis.
Talked to some realtors last year and it’s not like 3-bedroom units are that popular. One developer sold so few 3-bedroom units during presale they decided to break many 3-bedroom units into 1-bedroom and 2-bedroom units (which leads to terrible layouts)
I feel like most people who need three bed rooms will be families. And they will want a single family home. I haven't been in many apartments but having three people in a apartment seems rough. They are just so small. It makes a bit of since that 3 bed rooms don't seem to do well.
That is only an America and Canada problem....also extra fuel to the fire they charge so much for a 3 bedroom since they are so rare here that a house is cheaper.
I live in a low income senior building, we only have windows on one side. Not in the bathroom or kitchen. There’s something not being addressed, ADA in the US. New construction needs to be accessible depending on the building. Stairs don’t do anything for someone using a Walker, rollator, wheelchair, etc.
This 2 staircase rule is stupid! If a fire alarm goes off, the elevator goes down to the main floor and stays there. What if the stairs aren’t accessible?!
Good stuff. Canada and Vancouver especially way over regulated and are full of silly rules that limit development and make building more time consuming and more expensive. Keep making this kind of content!’
There are just as many regulations in Europe, they just regulate buildings to not be made of wood, whereas we regulate to compensate for buildings being made of wood.
@@haydentravis3348 All of that is local zoning law though. Not really what people think of as "regulations" in this context. The difference there is European (and global, tbh) zoning and code is generally not done at a local level. Nimbys ruining everything they touch is not really a regulations issue, if anything its the opposite. A lack of "big government" allows small time people with small time thinking to dictate policy over a massive swath of the country. More national regulations to take power away from selfish local level players would fix things, a lot.
Another weakness of the Canadian building code is that it does not discern between concrete and masonry construction and light steel or aluminum construction in any way regarding automatic sprinkler systems. It is rare to see a fire sprinkler system in a fully concrete or masonry building in Europe, but they are very common in steel-framed buildings.
I’m in Kentucky and the housing market here over the last 7-8 years is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Homes that were bought for $130K in 2015 are now being sold for $590k. I’m talking about tiny, disgusting, poorly built 950 square foot shit boxes in quite mediocre neighborhoods. Then you’ve got Better, average sized homes in nicer neighborhoods that were $300K+ 10 years ago selling for $750k+ now. Wild times.
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In Belgium, apartment buildings also require two separate fire escapes, but one of them can be a window. Ladder access is required unless a fire truck can easily reach it. This explains why the two-stairs rule starts at 6 floors, that's simply the highest our biggest ladder trucks can reach.
The fire department always checks building plans before they get planning permission and local governments will basically always follow their advice. So depending on the place, there can be stricter limits. Buildings with a higher fire risk like student dorms for example always have stricter fire regulations.
Makes so much good sense.
Canada will need to redesign fire trucks as well since currently they are so massive so you would need to create enormous roads around the building to make them part and to their job
I kind of got confused mid-way through the video because, well I com from Montreal and most apartments are three stories high with a half basement and I have never entered a two staircases apartment. In most cases it's the same thing as you describe, there are two fire exit one of which is through an outdoor staircase, literally the same as you can see in the background of the video. In fact, many 3 story apartment buildings don't even have inside staircase, there is a staircase in the front yard and one in the backyard. Even in the case of a higher rise, I have been in one where the second fire exit was through a window and then staircases, the appartement was on the eight floor. I get the point of the video and I strongly agree with it but it seems like the staircase story cannot be the only reason why bulkier buildings are so prevalent. Since most of those building were built after Montreal's great fire, I assume they were built after the 2 staircase law. However, I am in no way more knowledgable than About Here, so maybe I am missing out on something.
Very good content, explained with just enough complexity 👌. Thanks
How do people jump down from the windows without dying? You do realize many buildings with windows have been on fire and the people inside still couldn’t escape and died.
Housing minister Ravi Kahlon literally just linked this video in his announcement that they are allowing single-staircase builds in BC starting the fall. Amazing work, Utae.
Jealous Ontario resident here. Let's do this here too!
Damn I thought youre talking about india by reading the name Ravi Kahlon
@@BondJFK Good thing we have the ability to read complete paragraphs to get all the context!
Poor for fire evacuation.
@@michaelplunkett8059 I actually don't think so.
I was reading more into this and it turns out the laws we have now just mandate required stairwells per floor.
So, if your floors each have like 50 units, they all share the two stairwells (along with all the floors above and below them). And that's all they get. Just the two stairwells.
If there are too many people for those two stairwells, oh well, the builder meet that minimum of two stairwells.
But, there are also ways of doing it where you mandate a minimum number of stairwells for each resident to have access to. That way, you can have one stairwell, two, maybe even three or more, whatever you need to reach that minimum so that each resident as enough stairwell access without too many other residents using that stairwell too.
I think that way is better. It should be about what's safe or not for people, not about number of floors or any other aspect of the building which are the end of the day is just an aspect of the building, not the whole picture.
When I lived in Boston's North End, my appt building had a deck on the roof overlooking the waterfront. This allowed tenants to socialize in the evenings without any invitation of sort. My friends could also drop by and hang out with me on the rooftop. I felt that, mentally, we were better off for it. If I had to meet friends outside somewhere else in the city, it would almost always feel like we had to spend money and transportation cost to make it happen.
I lived in Southie during the start of the pandemic, and the rooftop access was a lifesaver in terms of mental health with all the public spaces shut down.
So you want the buildings as wide as possible, to meet more people ? In a single staircase house, you would meet a maximum of maybe 10 people.
@@holger_p Do you know ten of your neighbors and speak to them regularly?
@@simonestreeter1518 at least i know their face and who lives where.
As bigger the building, as less possible. It's less anonymous in smaller structures.
Theres plenty of places to socialize, i feel like alot of if the "socialization spaces" take away area where there could be more units, and be honest 99% of people dont want to deal with their neighbors like that, and i dont want to lay extra for said spaces
Oh man, the hotel analogy is too true! All the new luxury apartments in LA have these tiny units with windows on only one side going for $5,000/mo rent, and when you open your front door, instead of being outside, you're in a (depressingly artificially lit) hallway. Each time I left a tour of a new apartment I thought to myself "I want to live somewhere that feels like a home, not somewhere that feels like they're just packing people in like a hotel - and certainly not for $5,000/mo." Now I understand why I always had that feeling.
Apartments in LA feel like caves. You get these stark shadows from their long shape and singular points of light. I would love to see more layout flexibility. I think it would make a huge difference in making apartments more desirable here.
It sounds like you just want a single family home? All (ETA: hi rise) apartments have hallways. Unless your ground floor you can’t just walk out of any apartment.
So it’d make more sense if you said “I only want to live on the ground floor” because you clearly just don’t like hi rise living. That’s fine, but it’s not a fault of the apartment.
I specifically liked my apartment because it reminded me of a luxury hotel. I have a high floor corner unit with windows on both sides of the corner though.
I wouldn’t be a fan of a 3rd floor middle unit, but the location (of the building within the city) would make it acceptable still for what I pay.
@@somethingsomething404 No, I'm saying that LA apartments are skinny rectangles with windows on one side. (Not all of them, of course, but a disappointing number of them.) Like the video says, if there were more flexibility in layout, then you might have windows on two or three sides. This would make them more like single family homes and much more desirable.
Whoops, I think you were replying to Nimesh, not me.
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Big house suv. Bruh you got people driving Honda civics, living in a 1 bedroom apartment and not a luxury one at that living paycheck to paycheck.
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What's wrong with debt? Consider 40% of homeowners in the US live mortgage free.
I work in a building in Toronto with a scissor stair. The "long straight run" problem was solved by putting a small landing halfway down each staircase. So you only fall 7 steps max instead of bouncing down all 14. Units are positioned on either side of the stair box. Each unit has a 'front door' and a 'back door'. Each door opens into a big shared landing on each floor for the respective staircase. The front door of your unit is the door that leads to the staircase that leads down to the front door of the building. That staircase is rather nice looking. The 'back door' leads to the other landing, to the staircase that goes to the parking behind the building. It is very utilitarian concrete, like a fire stair. I think it's a reasonable compromise.
So each floor has only about 2 units? I can't imagine a 3rd unit have access to 2 stairs.
If you wish to avoid encountering someone on a staircase, consider using a different one. It's a practical rule. Double-floor apartments offer added convenience.
@@aucklandnewzealand2023 Double floor apartments mean that not every area needs access to the common stairs and hallways.. Good suggestion!
@@eugenetswong That's right, 2 units per floor. A narrow but deep lot, 4 floors, 8 units on what used to be a lot for a single family home. Precisely the kind of small infill construction that this video is promoting. It was more common in the first half of the last century but is now impossible due to gradual changes in the building code. This is not a new building. It fits the lot perfectly and the scissor stair maximizes usable floor space while providing the required 2 fire exits per floor, which has been in the fire code here for multi-family buildings for about 100 years.
@@dutchcanuck7550Excellent! Thank you for confirming.
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I like the material being presented in the recent episodes. Identifying regulations that unintentionally add additional costs and complexity to house construction
Intentionally*
Those regulations,.like the stairwell regulations, came into being after tragedies that would have been prevented by these regulations.
@@michaeltutty1540Perhaps. Or would a second exit have been enough? If the rest of the world is doing okay, what’s different? This kind of videos can show the reality for us to judge.
The NEC (electric codes) update this year just added thousands to it. Thanks to mandatory EV and solar wiring.
@@michaeltutty1540 yes, fire saftey hazard
Living in a Chicago walkup (and most buildings on my block being the same, roughly 3-4 stories) this staircase issue seems to be somewhat alleviated by having outdoor staircases attached at the back on the building. This being said, almost all Chicago blocks have alleyways in addition to the street so access is easier than other cities. Added bonus: Each unit in my building has a small outdoor space on the staircase landing where people set up small bistro sets, grills, and outdoor furniture in a mini patio setup. Not ideal, but my building was built in the 90s so compatible with the current building codes.
The outside staircase on the back of the building connecting to the balconies is common here in Montreal too. I live in one that's 15 years old, so it was still being allowed fairly recently at least.
Chicagoan here. was thinking the exact same thing. Seems like a decent workaround
Yes, the porches are great and helps with this issue. Though it's annoying when someone asks you to help them move and of course they are on the top floor...
That's a great solution to buildings with 1 unit per floor, and is very common for single-family home conversions. The problem becomes the medium-sized buildings where you have 2-3 units per floor. Now you need 2-3 staircases on the exterior of the building which starts eating up your available floorspace/lot size.
@@agilemind6241 We regularly have buildings with porches with 2-3 units per floor. The porch runs along the back of the building and has one stair shared by all of the units. There can still be windows along the porch, satisfying light and ventilation requirements.
I live in Germany and while we used to build the thin apartment buildings in the past nowadays it's very uncommon and most apartment buildings look like the american counterparts, rather large blocks. The reason is, that rarely individual persons build apartment buildings anymore like it was common in the past but now it's housing companies (some large ones owned by the state/cities) that build large apartment blocks and it's simply cheaper and more efficient to build a large block instead of 20 individual units.
The "American" model is multiple buildings spread over an apartment complex -- i haven't seen any "big block" ones
Unless you mean the high rises in the metropolises??
In Belgium things are a bit different. Unless a project developper can get his hands on an entire block, the project still needs to be approved by the local council. And in most cases that council will demand the project to retain the original building fronts. Unforetunately this hasn't always been the case in the past and alot of damage was done. In some cases, the local council can even request to re-construct the original front that may have been demolished in the 1960s.
@@BracaPhoto no, i'm talking about large buildings that stretch over a block. there's lots of them in Hamburg/Germany where i live.
@@saladspinner3200 Yeah, that's true for Germany aswell. But it doesn't apply to completely new developed land, there the developers have free hand to design as it pleases them and in my experience that leads to large building complexes, because it's more cost efficient to only have 1 outside hull then to have many. I'm not against it though, those building complexes fit their purpose and could potentially be quite nice (never lived in one). Large in my terms here is for example a block that's been constructed in the new harbor district which is ~150m x 100m with ~12.000m² area covered (but there's lots of empty space inbetween for sunlight to enter.
That's why he only shows old buildings in the city center. The entire video is a lie and I can't believe people are falling for it.
The issue is that either the renter or the owner must in some way pay insurance and property taxes if they want a "permanent roof" with utilities like electricity, gas and water. Because of this, many people-at least in California, where I currently reside-are living in tents. No taxes, rent, mortgages, or insurance. The number of people who tell me they live in their car that I meet amazes me. Its crazy out here!
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I've watched A LOT of apartment videos (Never Too Small, Apartment Therapy, House & Home etc.) and in a million years I never would have guessed that the apartment at 10:07 was in Seattle. My first thought would have been somewhere in Europe or Latin America.
I've gotten so used to seeing a certain layout in modern buildings in North America and I didn't realise it was window/staircase related until now. This video was such a fresh take and it's so interesting to see certain cities taking a different approach. Thanks for doing what you're doing!
Wow that's probably why all people who wanna have space and freedom feel like having an apartment in America is dumb, like every apartment here looks unlivably stuffy and constricted (because of the small room and barely any windows) and houses look huge, freeing, lots of light and windows and bedrooms. I've always noticed how abroad, outside America, apartments look huge, freeing, many bedrooms and windows but I've never made the connection that it was the regulations like you said
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@@ahnafj416 I also think the terrible layout of modern American apartments is the largest reason so many Americans say they'd never want to live in an apartment
voice probbably never been to Seattle@
@@ahnafj416 i'm an immigrant to America, I don't know any other immigrants who came here to work and whose goal is to buy a condo, or who are content living in an apartment. A house with a yard (and a pool) is almost always the end goal. Back home in eastern europe, these last two years have seen a massive reduction in houses for sale and an explosion in construction of houses as the middle class appears fed up to live like ants and buys up houses for sale
This has been one of my favorite videos on this channel. Something of note; eliminating this rule could also help promote gentle density in areas where NIMBYs fear a big boxy, 4-story building would "ruin the character of their neighborhood". A 2-story building with one staircase could produce 10-12 units, significantly improving on housing stock while not setting off any alarms.
Depends on how they do it of course, but the staircase rule did come from actual concerns - so it might only apply to certain regions that are lower risk for example. But you could also mandate that landlords provide fire ladders in low risk locations. Even with better materials fire is still a larger issue in the Americas than in Europe
NIMBYs don't fear bug buildings they fear poor ppl and they'd be opposed to that to.
two storey ?? really ?? that's almost as pointless as the initial argument .. you want to build apartments the same height as a suburban home
@@daboundy The mandatory two parking spaces and the legal distance from the curb, as well as how much space is needed for the garbage bins of just *one house* are insane in the US. If you were allowed to build narrow two storey buildings, or even three storey, the empty space needed for everything else stays roughly the same while the living density increases. The suburbs are *such* trash that even single storey row houses would be better!
More windows more opportunity to escape fires
There was one more thing not mentioned in the video. Firefighters in Europe have cars with ladders to evacuate people. Even in smaller towns, those ladders reach about 30 metres, which is enough which is enough for 8 floors. And apartments are built so that each apartment is a separate fire compartment and the fire doesn't spread to and from the apartment.
We have ladder trucks in Canada! Not sure why we wouldn't. And the shelter in place model was called into question after the Grenfell disaster (although that was an extreme case).
In the US and Canada firetrucks are often bigger than necessary, with large ladder trucks getting dispatched to calls where they're completely unnecessary. Any town with midrise apartments is going to have ladder trucks.
Low rise wood frame construction isn't going to have as strong of a fire break between every apartment, but a new 5 story with ~60 units in my neighborhood has a firewall through the middle. Larger single stair buildings (where they are multiple sets of stair to different groups of units), are usually built with firewalls between each group, similar to separate buildings with no side setback from each other.
LOVE THE MUSIC FOR THIS VIDEO!
@@th3oryO Grenfell was an old building, and much taller than the ones mentioned in the video. And if they had used according to code in the renovation, I don't think this disaster would have happened.
And the shelter in place model did work, it's just that the flats aren't built for fire spreading from outside the building.
The fire services would much rather get to the building with all of the occupants already out and safe. Then they can deal with the structure fire instead of performing potentially risky evacuations. There's a saying when dealing with OHSA - 'Safety rules are written in blood.' I think we can find ways to deal with the bedroom window and two-exit mandate without tossing out important rules.
I think this illustrates a great point that applies across multiple areas (building codes, laws, lending rules, insurance guidelines, etc.) - which is that there should be a review on a regular basis to see if they are still necessary/applicable. Every code/law/rule should have an automatic cycle of review (every 5-10 years from the date of passage perhaps) to determine if it's still accomplishing it's intended purpose. Those that are not should be revised or repealed.
There are so many codes/laws/rules/guidelines in place where people do not even know their original purpose.
this guy in the video is talking nonsense. huge buildings with a lot o f units need more stairs for logistical reasons. Also it 's far safer in the event of fire. Those tiny european units are much much smaller and so don't need as many stair wells.
I've lived in these single access points building in the US. (older buildings). They had a great solution to the fire safety issue... multiple fire escapes.
I thought it was funny that he mentioned that the laws were put in place because there was only one way to escape in the event of a fire while standing in front of a building with an internal staircase and an external fire escape staircase.
The problem is, people generally consider exposed fire escapes to be ugly.
Then there's the issue with the handicapped. Forcing the handicapped to live on the ground floor.... oooohhh, bad idea.
Yeah, I Get It. But it's the attitude of the ADA.
Or we could just have a fire department
Wow. I've been wondering why every single apartment building going up in my city has at most 2 bedroom apartments and why they're all the size of an entire city block with a "hotel" layout. I love older style row houses, I never understood why they aren't being built anymore.
As you mentioned, because it's so hard to get enough land together to bother building a modern apartment building, my city is always pushing developers to go at least 8-10 stories or more. If you're going to bother acquiring the land may as well build as much as possible because that building is going to be there for 50-100 years. I understand the logic, but I'd rather see a ton of 4 story row houses, that only require 0.05 acres of land.
This is why I love the new Chicago 3-flats. Most of them are 3-bed units. Even though they have two stairs, the stairs are at the front and back so they don’t waste space on hallways.
they are built. Charlotte, NC has many new construction "row houses" in the last 3-5 years
this is a misinformation campaign bro, the goal is to keep cheap competitors out of real estate , two stair wells only take up twice the space of one, that's 5 less units at most
Also, the passage the Americans with Disabilities Act made these European apartment designs no long viable.
@@Sacto1654 most people missed this detail, my county demands housing built after 1991 that is 4 or more units to comply with ADA and Fair Housing Act accessibility requirements
Another simple solution is to put the hallway in one wall. I'm not sure why you didn't come up with that solution. Or if you look at many apartments in Korea, they have balconies instead of hallways. So, the windows are at the front and rear of the apartment, and they still have two stairways.
works in Europe also!
I've seen apartments like that in HI and FL where it's warm year round, but much less common where the temperature regularly drops below zero.
Putting the hallway along one wall still has the problem that most of the units will only have windows on one end of the unit. Bedrooms have to have a window, meaning that only the room furthest from the hallway can be a bedroom.
Furthermore, this means that the building will have to be very thin, because most of the apartment unit will have no windows and therefore very little natural light. Having the hallway run through the middle of the building means that you can essentially double the number of units from what you are proposing.
they actually do this in hawaii but i don’t think this would work very well in rlly cold places
@@plum2843 Japan has its share of cold weather, but they do this.
Years ago I saw an interesting solution to the bedroom window requirement. I used to deliver appliances and TV's and one time went to this building where the apartment units themselves were two floors, with the living, dining rooms and kitchen on the lower floor, with the bedrooms on the upper floor. That meant both the bedrooms and living room could have an entire wall of windows.
Townhouse style. I live in one and i have two full sides of windows up and down and an upper deck outdoors.
Such housing is essentially inaccessible to the elderly, for whom any steps are problematic, let alone stairs.
@@awuma That's true, but maybe apartment blocks could be built with the ground floor having accessible units and the top floors having a mix? So many 3 accessible 1 BRs on the ground floor but floors 2-4 are typical one-story apartments with 2 BR and then the final 2 floors (5 & 6) form two-level units?
@@awumayes lets make sure we build the entire world for a small percentage of the people
And make sure all the schools teach only at the level of the mentally disabled
In Québec, these older apartment buildings usually have a front indoor staircase (although sometimes outdoor) and a set of outdoor staircase behind the building, often associated with a balcony. That allow for less corridors and more windows per unit.
It's wild that a second outdoor staircase isn't sufficient in building codes for even a 3 story building.
The 2 story house I grew up in didn't have anything to help get down after I would have had to climb out a window - good luck to anyone who wasn't a skinny kid with knees that could survive a jump to the ground.
same in NYC
Honestly I think outdoor stairs/attached elevators is a good solution, in part because they sound more pleasant to go up and down. The ones inside get stuffy lol.
Same in Chicago. And the unit is the entire floor so you have windows on every wall
But this means your neighbors can walk around and look through your backwindow in the 3rd floor ?
One thing that keeps my brain twisted is why do so many appartment complexes have flat roofs with absolutely nothing on top. Imagine the social area they could've built up there.
Anything placed on a roof adds weight making reinforcement necessary. There need to he barriers in terms of higher walls or fencing, limits on the type of structure and maximum limit of people, plus soundproofing for the top floor units. The costs all add up, as well as extra insurance . In my area, very low rise, newly built condos are common but not all builders opted for rooftop amenities.
Adds more cost and potential lawsuits
The obvious answer is cost, but I agree the benefits would greatly outweigh the costs if more of the flatroof buildings had rooftop solar, gardens, or patios.
Another reason is that its very rare for there to actually be nothing on top of a building like your describing. Its almost always where the building has air conditioners, water tanks for sprinklers, electrical transformers, and other machinery. The open space is left open so that when something needs to be fixed a repair person can move around and get to the things they need to access. Having a truly empty but flat roof is pretty rare, at least in the US. And based on pictures I have seen from many other countries, I would guess thats the case in many of them as well.
@@milamberarial This is true, although at least in what I've seen, there's often enough space to cover at least half the roof with "something" while still leaving room for HVAC and other equipment, as well as space to access/maintain them.
it's funny because a german youtube channel just did a video on why german cities are so ugly, and some aren't. It was because after the second world war there were some that re-built as it used to be while others built for the car. Nowadays, the cities that built for the car are wide open spaces with some boxy buildings, lots of concrete, that have to adhere to strict laws that govern everything but looks. Older cities are more human-sized with lit ped zones and people are around which gives a sense of security
One of my friend's dads used to joke that Stuttgart (one of those car cities) was destroyed twice, once when it was bombed, once when it was rebuilt :>
it's not just cars, older cities had no planning and building regulations, so everything was much more organic, things evolved based on the needs of the ppl who lived there. The downside is obviously pollution and excessive congestion when everyone started driving. But I think instead of planning and regulating around what ppl can/can't do we should instead regulate specifically around things that cause problems, like air/noise pollution, where cars are allowed and better public transit.
@@sadmanh0 the thing is new cities can and are being built in that way as well - that is, with a focus on the human being instead of the car.
Can you provide a link to that video please
@@Tracomaster maybe in some places, in NS we still have restrictions around parking and the staircase thing which basically prevents everyone but 4 development companies from building anything.
I really appreciate that your video is full of info, without stupid jokes or unreasonable hysterical screams.
I have lived in three-storey walls and now, in a two storey fourplex (with additional basement studio units). I like the solution they came up with for having two staircases: One in the front and one in back. No hallway connects the staircases; instead the staircases are separated and accessed through front and side/ back doors within the units. It means it is easier to have multi-br units with windows.
Given that Switzerland has the lowest fire deaths per capita and no limit on the height of single stair buildings I am totally comfortable doing away with the rule altogether.
I'm from Switzerland. The standards of how to build something are, let's say, different to Canada. At least that is what I noticed when I lived in Vancouver in the mid nineties. You probably are not allowed to build a house, not even a single family home, in Switzerland like in Canada. And if you would try it, it would cost you a leg and an arm to bring that up to code here.😮
@@herbie1975if that's true, that's crazy. Average Canadian building standards are significantly more strict than the US. Maybe that says more about the US than it does about Switzerland though.
@@Boobockfunny enough Switzerland ranks number 1 in human freedom index
I dont believe that for a second. You telling me a place where EVERYBODY has fireplaces ???? nah no sale
but Americans are too obese to use stairs.
Here in New Zealand, we have other means to stop or limit a fire. Such as the stair and elevator casement must be in concrete, the wall linings are all fireproofed to withstand I think 2 hours, to allow you to escape, and all doors are fire rated and sealed again to 2 hours, plus all floors must have working fire appliances or water hoses, and a break glass panel to alert the fire brigade system.
In my building (13 stories high), they shoved the two staircases into each other, at least from the second floor up. You can't see that from the inside, because they are sealed of by concrete walls, so if one staircase is filled with smoke, or even on fire, the second one isn't affected by it, besides literally winding itself around the other one. The access doores on the floors are seperated by the length of one stair between two floors. on the same side of the building it changes every other floor which staircase you enter. Very space efficient, but still safe.
Another point is that today it is difficult in most cities to find an apartment complex that isn't built next to, or near, some undesirable commercial location, highways or railroads. The smaller apartment buildings of years ago were accepted into residential areas and didn't require being located near busy streets in order to service their heavier traffic flows.
No, the "smaller apartment buildings of years ago" were in neighborhoods that were mixed use or close to commercial areas or had public transport to handle the larger volume of people, so there was no "heavier traffic flow". It's not an apartment issue, it's a traffic/public transport engineering issue.
If you buy a single family home in the suburbs, you don't want an apartment building next to it. It affects the property values; the apartment building could turn Section 8; and it creates more traffic/noise.
This is very well put together. Investigative journalism that isn't seen too often these days in the mainstream media. I like how you take a position but look at the other side's as well - also not seen much these days. Thank you for your work!
One curious Dane here. Some of those smaller narrow buildings in Denmark originally had two staircases. One from the street connecting apartments left to rigth, and one to back yard where the outhouse was, and the "night men" could pick up the valuable resource for fertilizing the crops. When indoor plumbing was introduced, you could remove one staircase. Divide the space and reconstruct the apartments with bathrooms. The condition for this was that the remaining staircase had to be fireproofed. So metal/concrete allowing people more time to escape, and windows must be able to open and big enough for emergency exit by firemen ladders.
8:20 RCD are also very useful at preventing a fire from a faulty electric device or a storm. They're able to cut the circuit in 20-40ms.
I'd be interested to know how Seattle and East Asian cities handle earthquake safety with a single point of egress. In Eastern Canada and Europe I understand that fire is the primary concern, but Pacific Rim cities have more disasters to balance and I would love to know how this is also taken into account.
In Japan each apartment has a patio and each patio has a hatch with a ladder, the holes are offset per floor so if you slip and fall you don't fall all the down.
In Japan at least, modern building standards require buildings to be able to survive extreme earthquakes without collapsing, potentially up to Magnitude 9 (there is a different Japanese earthquake scale that doesn't map to the Magnitude scale that well). So fire is still the primary evacuation concern, the advise for Earthquakes is to stay inside until the it passes and only then exit.
You simply have to build earthquake safe. Otherwise it becomes irrelevant if one or two staircases collapse.
Taiwan buildings are built earthquake- and typhoon-resistant. The stairs are positioned in a way that they provide good cross-bracing. New buildings generally have rebar sticking out the side, so that the next building can be tied to it (making all the buildings on the block support and protect each other). A lot of buildings in Seattle had a seismic retrofit in the early 2000s.
Earthquakes come with so little warning, fire exits are not really helpful unless the earthquake somehow causes a fire (possible but rare). Typhoons come with lots of warning, but you really need to be indoors when one arrives. In both cases, you really need the building to protect you.
There are similar earthquake-survivability standards in the Seattle area as others are describing, and the codes requiring multiple forms of egress in the US and Canada for any reason were born out of tragedies, so the video notwithstanding (which I think primarily comes down to putting inviting aesthetics above redundant safety measures), the current codes are for the best. Among other reasons, younger children and elderly people will often have a much harder time with hatches and dangling escape devices than with stairs and stairwells.
I live in Ecuador and everything is made of concrete blocks. I've never heard of a house fire. We don't even have smoke alarms because fires are so unheard of. We do worry about earthquakes, though.
"we don't even have smoke alarms" is definitely not something to brag about. It's probably because the government isn't enforcing basic fire code and the developers are pocketing the money for themselves. Btw, earthquakes cause fires.
There are travel distance limits as well, from the units to closest staircase, but I do agree that 2 staircases for just 2-level apartments is overkill.
Then again, it's hard to find a 2 storey apartment nowadays.
I think having the staircase exposed to the outside, like the one shown in the video, is a great concept and should be adopted more.
2 staircases still makes sense depending on the size and number of units of the building.
sure, it sounds great until its winter time and freezing rain turns your staircase into the worlds most painful waterslide
The exterior stairway you note in the video is a fire escape, much too steep and weak to ever be used normally, And there is almost certainly one attached to the back of the building as well to give the rear facing apartments an emergency exit. The core of the building is very likely just a normal stairway. In older buildings, as shown, there may or may not be an elevator. It is referred to as a 'walk-up'.
The REASON for the two stairway rule is fire escape. If one stairway is compromised, the second is your escape path. And he is mostly correct, two dedicated stairways with connecting hall to service all apartments PLUS an elevator, dictates a larger building.
2 stories is just a normal ingle-family detached home. If it gets converted to apartments, then we’d have one. But even Canada requires that only for over two stories.
There are problems with that metal staircase. They are only used ever used as fire escapes and they never get maintained. The bolts and clamps attaching them to the building rust off leaving no support. Yearly inspection and maintenance/repair is required but that isn't done by many property owners, thus leaving a life safety issue for the renters.
This is another case of UA-cam’s “how did I end up here? But I’m so glad I did.” Fascinating video that put context to things I never took the time to notice. Especially when you got to the Seattle section, because there is a big increase in skinny apartments, and I had a friend who lived in that building you featured. I’m going to be so much more conscious of this now.
I recently visited a community housing projects in their new build home. I wondered why they build a very brutalist hallway/staircase while every other aspect of the building was intended to be very eco-friendly, sustainable and constructed with cross-laminated timber. It was exactly for that reason. They were allowed to build a 4-story apartment building with only one staircase but it had to be rather wide and from a solid core (concrete)
You should make a video on basements too. Here in the US you have to have an escape route for each floor where in other countries you only need 1. This is why in America houses only have 1 basement level while in France for instance they have entire houses underground
Good point. We do that in commercial buildings in the US, but definitely not residential.
We can't have basements in Florida so that would not even work
There are a lot of underground parking lots and storage units in France, but underground houses ? Maybe a bunch of very peculiar architect houses, and houses built on an incline in hilly and mountainous areas, with floors that are "below ground" on one side and over ground on the other (which are not legally considered underground), but "by nature", underground levels are considered unfit for housing (article R1331-17 of the Code de la Santé publique, the text is available for free on Légifrance, you can let your browser automatically translate it), the article (R1331-18 of the Code de la Santé publique) that authorises them on certain condition is recent (effective since October 2023), and constitutes an exception for certain specific cases of underground levels, no the rule, as far as I know.
I never studied law in any capacity, I just looked on the Internet because I was curious, so there very well may be things I am missing, I just looked for "appartement sous-sol légifrance" on Google and read what came up.
In Phoenix basements are almost completely unheard of
For many apartment buildings in Montreal, the stairs are outside the building, helping maximize interior space. Of course, you have to be careful with the slippery metallic stairs in winter, plus some winding stairs are not ideal to transport furniture, but it does save on space.
@@ikkajaalati Possibly! It still results in more habitable space inside. 🙂
There are many theories about why this design is so prominent here in Montreal, but the most compelling reason is that it had to do with the tax code, which set rates based on the internal square footage. Outside stairs effectively reduced the tax owed, and tax was only to be paid for "useful" space. This was good for landlords and for apartment owners. Less compelling is that the Church was leery about creating so much secluded space where people could get up to no good in private, but still not in a dwelling per se. That seems weird, but make no mistake that the Church did have influence on all aspects of society and government until the 1960s, so it's plausible.
@@MichaelBoyle514 I've heard the "no hanky panky spaces" explanation as well. The tax code seems like a more reasonable explanation to me, but it's telling that a lot of people believe it's due to the former level of social control by the church.
Great video - both in content and how it was made (shots, editing, balance of info vs whimsical presentation, etc.) Nice job.
As an architect in Vancouver I can confirm stairs are not the limiting factor. The cost of construction is so expensive that developers can’t make money off smaller buildings. That’s why they build larger condo buildings so their percentage of sellable area is higher.
An interesting comment. But looking at plans of buildings that I lived in, in Canada, the USA and the UK, the latter single stair walk up seemed to have as large a percentage of sellable area as the American and Canadian buildings with hallways and multiple stairs. Hallways seem to take an enormous amount of space, and aren't needed in many single stair designs. What are you seeing for sellable percentages of the two designs?
Assuming the same total area, how would it be significantly cheaper to build one large building than to build three small ones?
I'm sorry but this comment is just bogus. If you're an architect in Vancouver then you've surely dealt with the city when it comes to zoning bylaws quite a bit and it's obvious that the laws are designed so that smaller investors can't get a piece of the pie. I've owned a number of rental properties and bought and sold land, have dealt with municipalities in Ontario trying to divide/add units or sever properties and if the red tape wasn't there there would be good money to make on small developments. If you can buy a parcel of land with a single house on it, sit on it for 5 years and make money then you can and should be able to knock it down, build a low rise mixed use/residential building and divide that building into 6 units. Simply to rent it out it would still be an incredibly good investment. If you could sever those units and give each of them a seperate title it would be even more profitable. The problem is that its small minded thinking that only people worth 8+ figures can create housing that people want to buy and is also profitable. Real estate investment and development is about adding value and finding best use for a parcel regardless of the size or format you follow. For every person worth 100 million there's 200 people worth 1 million that want to develop and make profits. And doing it small scale would take away a vast majority of peoples need for public transportation because you could actually build neighborhoods within walking distance of jobs and amenities. The system is rigged plain and simple. The actual cost of building a multi residential building vs a large single family really isn't that much. Fire separation, kitchens, bathroom costs all pail in comparison to the permits, the foundation and structure, you can do a kitchen and a bathroom for 15k and fire seperate for 5k. For a 3 storey multi that's peanuts compared to all the proposals and nonsense
@@JOIHIINIHey man you are 100% right. And unfortunately both are true. What you are addressing is the sort of the underlying reality of development in Vancouver. Thankfully zoning bylaws are changing to better address smaller lots. Density does not come from towers, most urbanists and architects know this. It comes from growing the average density of a city up as a whole (see Portland, Savannah, Chicago, etc.). There are many factors as to why it’s difficult to develop small skinnier buildings. My point is, I don’t see the stair being the main factor. As you pointed out, red tape is a big factor, but talking to real developers, it’s hard to secure funding (even govt grants for affordable housing) if the right efficiency is not met (about 78-83%). It’s simply just expensive to build in Canada.
@@bearcubdaycare a long condo building that is 150’ long will have 2 stairs in your classic Canadian Condo. A “European” style building that is 150’ long but is “5 separate buildings” will have 5 stairs in it. It’s actually not more efficient… given they are the same height and width, etc.
If you check the architecture in Argentina. By code, each building, no matter how many stories has to have 1 or 2 side substractions of the block to have natural ventilations depending the depth extension of the building in the terrain, which regularly is 9 1/3 x 35 meters. This makes it easier to build units with 5,4,3,2 and 1 bedroom appartments on the same floor.
If you go to Buenos Aires, you´ll see every neighboorhood (depending of the population density, but its a fact that in every neighborhood) you´ll see as regular 15 floor residential buildings if they are 10 years older or more and 6 to 15 floor buildings (depending if located in avenues or regular streets) in every single block of the city.
Also, every ground floor is destinated to comercial use, so it makes the 15 min city concept work more organically and decreases the need of personal transportation to get most things you might need.
Similar to some buildings in South Korea. Me encantaría visitar Argentina!
It's telling that even Australia has looser single stair rules than North America, when they are so similar in sprawl and development to Canada and to a lesser extent the USA.
I'm in Canada SE coast. I would have figured Australia housing would be heavily regulated due to the fires you seems to have all the time. We have them too but you guys seems to get more vicious ones is it the type of trees like eucalyptus or something else?
@@dg-hughes I live in Toronto but have lived in Australia. I presume the emphasis is on reasonable and effective regulations. Number of stairs is probably not going to help in an outdoor bushfire. Also, I don't think the bushfires have ever made it to cities like Sydney or Brisbane just the smoke.
@@jacktattersall9457This is just an educated opinion but those cities are surrounded by bush. So the bushfires start but they are put out quickly and have allot more prevention work done.
@@dg-hughesit is true that our eucalyptus trees burn extremely fast due to their high oil content in the leaves, but the majority of higher density urban areas don’t have too many native trees around that would spread fires that quickly. towards the suburbs however that’s where fire risk becomes a really serious issue
95% of people in australia live within 50km of the coast. the wildfires do not happen near major population centres but further out around them.
1. The issue is not the number of stair cases per se, it's the total admissible height of the building, paired with the number of inhabitant at any given moment.
2. In Spain, it's even required that the common distributing hallway must have an exterior access point for fire-fighters in case of a fire in the building, but it is also admissible to have one stair case that is totally sectored (fire protected) from the rest of the building including an area for people with disabilities that can stay there until they can get rescued and having the same staircase as access points for firefighters access with a ladder.
3. The examples you have shown of one bedroom apartment/studios makes a poor example, in fact those example is a reflect to the housing market requirements. For example, if you considered each studio of you shown as a module, you could join 2 horizontal modules to make one bedroom apartments with a totally separate space for kitchen, living and kitchen with enough space for a bathroom and a storage area.
4. You can also take revise Le Corbouiser's work for Unite de Habitacion in France, where he intelligently reconfigured the apartments in an L-shaped apartment (as a in Tetris), and each two shaped apartments are joined in a vertical ring with an empty space in the middle that acts as the space for hallway, to access the stairs and elevators, with results in a significant reduction of space destined to hallways for the whole building, and a significant reduction of the number of stops for the elevators.
5. Also your examples do not take into account that if there enough space you could have a patio for ventilation, which will provide ventilation for the interior of the living spaces (cross ventilation)
The low-key coolest part of this video is the part where you explain that Canadian cities just stopped burning down sometime in the early 1900s. That illustrates the point about fireproofing technology better than anything else!
Actually it speaks more to how people stopped using so many coal fires, fireplaces, candles and oil lamps in the home and switched to safer technologies, like, well, Edison's electricity and steam after the 1880s. This still caused fires but fewer and fewer each year as the technology was improved and fire in the home was slowly phased out. To this day, most house fires are still caused by candles and burning cigarettes.
@@butterbeans182 makes sense! Though, I think the point being made in the video that I was picking up on is that because of better fireproofing, those fires that do happen don't spread nearly as fast or as far.
Asbestos was widely used to fire proof buildings back then before they figured out it was toxic to the lungs.
Something you might find interesting is an apartment building I know here in the Netherlands. It has 12 living layers but only 4 hallways running through the building, as all apartments are made up of 1.5 floors. So they have the full front to back on one floor, and then either have half a floor up, or down with their own little private stairs. the apartments wrap themselves around the hallway with you having the floor below, and your neighbour opposite having the floor above.
Now this is a high building with 12 floors (+ ground floor, so 13 for Americans), but you could also do this with 6.
I grew up in a sort of archology here in Canada where every apartment had two floors, with entrances on both floors, it was a 4 storey building in some spots, and sometimes the twisting hallways led to doors that you would think are doors to more tunnels/exits/pool areas/garages, but it led into a persons upstair hallway by accident. We could go thru tunnels between the 3 buildings, so in winter we could go swimming without ever going outside. It was amazing.
In europe high density housing buildings are made similar to this new condos in the us. Only prices are higher despite lower wages and no fixed rate mortgages.
You have to be the only person in the world who can make this subject so entertaining. Loved the video. I really DID laugh out loud at your reaction to being caught putting the lighter up to the matress. Thanks for making my day. Great video!
Uytae, your videos are so influential now that the BC gov is announced plans to allow single stair buildings even before your video was released. Well done!
I'm totally okay with three-story single-stair apartments. It has to be cheaper to make one fireproof stair than to make two non-fire-proof ones. IMHO smaller, three-floor apartments are more appropriate as infill in established single-unit neighbourhoods than taller, larger ones.
You know what you could do to get around the rule? Let apartments have a back door. Have a staircase one one side of the building, and a second staircase on the other side of the building. (And maybe have a little patio/courtyard on the back side.) Then you don't need a hallway between the two stairs because residents will have access to both staircases.
That is how almost all buildings are in Chicago, with back porches connected by stairs, and you still see lots of single lot apartment buildings being built. I think it helps that we have alleyways though so if the building is on fire you can go out the back and move directly away from the building.
In some places the fire & building codes already require two exits from each unit. The kicker in many building layouts is that each exit not only must be separated by a fire door from the other but also that each exit must "have access to" a separate staircase from the other exit of the same unit. If the type of layout you are implying is chosen this shouldn't be a problem, but unfortunately people have a preference for more square units. 🤷
@@ekulio Fellow Chicagoan here (one who silently fumed when we were skipped during the 'North American cities that burned down' list--I mean, really?--okay, side-rant ended). The biggest concern, of course, is that Chicago's back porches are often... less than well-built, or at least well-maintained. I think they finally got ahead of it--at least, I haven't seen a slurry of "porch collapses during party" stories like we had some years back.
And yes, the Chicago Porch absolutely works for these sorts of buildings. Note that even many of the European ones he highlights in the video technically have two 'staircases'--those things sticking on the front of all those buildings are fire escapes, and arguably are more useful than a second indoor staircase would be (as the latter would be more easily blocked by a widespread fire on a lower floor--running past the window of a burning apartment may not be comfortable, but it sure as hell beats running through a lobby that's gone up in flames).
You need to have a city designed with alleyways for this to be feasible. Cities that do have huge alleyway systems, like Chicago, do this already as a standard.
Oh you beat me to it! @@ekulio
I live in the Netherlands and I might be a bit over the top, but I've made sure to only rent ground level of first story apartments. Ever since I've made enough money to have the option to choose this. I live close enough to the ground that even if the staircase was blocked, I could safely exit the house through my balcony or a window and land in the bushes below.
Every houses I lived in in montréal had at least two staircases but no hallways between them, thought every units had either two doors giving acces to two different unconnected staircase, or one door giving acces to a stair case outside staircase connecting to their balcony and there was never any problem with having quite a few bedrooms...
Most elderly Copenhagen buildings are the same.
Uytae with another banger! I'm an urban planner that is trying to figure out how to engage students and get them to start thinking about planning issues of our day. Uytae's videos are exactly what is needed to bring awareness and garner engagement while being entertaining and fun.
This sort of content is surprisingly peacefully mesmerizing, a journey into the past and into the future
In 2nd or 3rd floor building, in case of fire, you can use rope or bed sheet or whatever to climb down via the windows (since there are tons of windows anyway).
Sure, if you don't mind dying or becoming paralyzed in the process. A fall from the third floor on a hard surface is, for all practical purposes, life threatening to lethal.
@@lepidoptera9337 dude, who ever said you jump down from 3rd floor? I said you use rope (or cables, bedsheet, or anything) to climb down.
OR
you can buy a proper climbing rope and equipment and have lots of practice beforehand.
Or buy those inflatable emergency slide.
@@casekocsk I am sure you are the kind of kid who managed to climb up the rope in phys ed class on the first attempt. That makes you one in five or ten if you were an untrained boy and none in the entire class if you were an untrained girl. Now you are a 200lbs untrained adult who is panicking. What are your chances of securing a bedsheet (you are kidding, right... you have a twenty foot bedsheet????) correctly and then climbing down on that without falling? And of course you are carrying your wife, three kids, grandparents and the family dog on your back. Right?
Here, kid. Let me give you some more attention. You are hilarious. ;-)
See, my city kept the two stair case requirement, but allowed them to be 'outside as long as they are covered'. It's created some rather interesting designs.
The moment he showed the one staircase layout, I got flashbacks to reviewing efficient bedrooms design in Dwarf Fortress.
I suspect Dwarves are fine with windowless apartments.
@@jannikheidemann3805 until one of them has a psychotic breakdown
@@andrewlalis Needs more waterfalls.
Australia has the opposite problem to this. There are heaps of people in sharehouses who want single bedroom apartments but there are hardly any on the market.
Doesn't Hong Kong have like a ton of single-point-access buildings that reach like 20 or 30 stories in the air?
Careful what you wish for. In Dublin it's all they build (because the Irish don't understand apartments) so the next step up from your overpriced 400sqft shoebox is a family home in the burbs that young people can no longer afford.
Very interesting and insightful video, thanks. I grew up in the New York City area, and a lot of the older housing stock in denser areas was built this way. Narrow "brownstones" or rowhouses fit on lots often only 25' wide. But buildings from that era also usually had exterior steel "fire escapes" that are similarly a fixture in these old neighborhoods, which wound up giving the unit 2 means of egress after all. Just like you see in the first scenes of your video.
I think smaller lots, even if they only have one to three units, also have a benefit in keeping more opportunities available for a person to own their own home. And I agree that having smaller apartment units can fit better into an existing neighborhood.
Some areas have also required one unit of parking for each dwelling, but designers have accommodated this with ground level parking within the footprint of the building. There are well done examples that still contribute to an attractive street scape in places like Hoboken and Jersey City, and still manage to fit a number of units onto compact urban lots.
Builders do that here because they have to work with smaller lots, and are fortunate holdovers from older communities. Whenever a developer can get a larger lot, or combine several lots, there must be other economies or efficiencies in play because they almost always seem to build the large footprint apartments. But I'm all for more use of point access buildings for at least 3 or 4 story units since they make smaller scale buildings much more viable.
I'm up for de-extreming this code. My city only has these single-point access buildings because I think they were built before this code. New developments are huge and even when they're urban they take up large portions of our blocks.. little to no fine-grain development! It will be very hard for us to make beautiful fine-grained urban areas like we want to without amending our codes to make the development of new narrow buildings viable. And then we can maybe focus a little on making them look nice and traditional, too.
I would love to live in a wall-to-wall narrow apartment/commercial/office building in a dense portion of my city but they're so old and there are so few so they're still expensive!
This
Imagine walking around those big things, they're like walls. Residents might have backdoors to go through, but every other pedestrian has to walk around. Is especially annoying living in a trailer park with one entrance, even the stores 50 feet away take a mile of walking to get to. It's ridiculous.
What about parking?
I'm think the code could be changed to determine number of staircases based on evacuation capacity and distance.
@@haydentravis3348 I hate that, I have one such neighborhood near me, not only are the apartments not built on top of the neighboring shopping center. You have to go out to the access road down to the main street then walk around the apartment just to get there adding an extra 10 minutes walking time.
This begs another question , WHAT HAPPENED TO FIRE ESCAPES ? they are outside the building so they can not fill with smoke and gave s sort of balcony to people who otherwise would have no access outside , they were metal and could not burn . The fire escape also could allow for more ways out than just 2 and they were widely separated around the building meaning at least one would not be engulfed in flame or smoke .They were of a standard design so they were inexpensive and could be removed from an old building and put on a new building .
I think it's because they weren't all that safe compared to internal stairs.
Here in NYC they are not maintained well and haven't really proven to save lives in fires. Advances in sprinklers, ladder trucks, and fire-resistant building techniques have made them obsolete.
@@danielfischer4244re: not maintained well - I feel like this could be overcome by just requiring an annual inspection similar to sprinkler systems/fire extinguishers
they're ugly
I watched an excellent video explaining why fire escapes are no longer used, it should be easy to find. Enclosed stairs are much safer. Some of the risks include having fire burst out a window onto the fire escape, burning and anyone on that level at that time, making the metal burning hot and trapping everyone above from moving down, possibly choking them with smoke.
Seattle architect here...
The biggest challenge for small apartment buildings is their lack of economies of scale. The market rent is more or less the same as the rent in larger buildings, but larger buildings can be built for less money per square foot. Larger buildings can also include amenities like fitness centers, dog parks, business centers, etc, which take up a small percentage of the total space, but increase resident appeal.
It's kind of the same effect as the problem with the missing, Missing Middle projects, because the numbers don't work. With the small apartment buildings, the numbers either don't work, or just barely work. When the numbers do work, it's because it's relatively high end housing.
they aren't interested in these facts, clicks and hype and reason to blame others is what sells
They seem to work in some places in the world though. Why?
But what is the reason that buildings smaller than blocks exist at all then?
@@Dan-dy8zp In the US, investors expect unrealistic returns. Other countries have a more sane approach.
@@Currywurst-zo8oo They exist because that's all smaller investors can afford. However, the reason for the missing, Missing Middle housing is that the numbers easily end up negative. Even something as small as a 6 plex is going to take around $500,000 cash. You could invest that in an index fund and get a sure return, or risk it all on a 6 plex.
0:03, I can't get over how seamlessly it blends in to the rest of the building. I honestly would've never clocked it as an apartment in the first place
What an excellent video!!! So important to share these seemingly random but important facts about what is holding back building better cities and more housing!
Wow I was kinda blown away by the quality of this video! Very informative and excellent graphics and editing. It was genuinely eye opening for me to see that section about apartment windows
Also, the ground level parking lots. Did you note that many of these older 1-staircase buildings have fire escapes on the outside.
Whenever a cost cutting measure is introduced , it should also increase safety by the same percentage at least.
I do have a small issue with the portrayal of single stairway building allowing for many more bedrooms due to the massive increase in windows. This is only a factor if the single stairway building doesn't abut against other buildings. Most of the buildings you showed were sandwiched together which really only allows the 2 walls that don't to have those windows. In my opinion having 1 big building with 100 units and 2 staircases probably saves space overall compared to 10 buildings with 100 units and 10 staircases. If you can get the bigger plot of land then the bigger building will probably be more efficient. That being said if you can't get the whole plot then the smaller units do have the advantage like you said.
A single stairway could have one or two large multi bedroom units on a floor, even with no setback from neighbouring buildings, while a double loaded building would have to split the same space in two (unless is was an end unit). So for example you could have 2 or 3 bedrooms with rear windows, and another bedrom and kitchen/common area with front windows - while a central hallway would maybe result in only 2-bed units (bedrooms on either side of central kitchen/living room) in a similar space.
Theres definitely tradeoffs, and a sufficiently larger lot will be more homes per area with a double loaded corridor, but is limited in its ability to have many 3+ bedroom units. The time and effort to assemble land and build a single large building also affects the price of development - smaller buildings carry less risk and can be sold sooner so the developer spends less on financing compared to build costs. Smaller apartments can also be more incrementally built to increase density in an area (replacing one home with six), while a larger apartment might be more difficult to sell in an area that doesnt already have high demand (replacing 4 homes with 60).
The problem is the hall connecting the two staircases. Yes buildings abutting each side give only two exposed walls. Add a hallway and you're down to one. You can do tricks with multiple floor units, so a hallway isn't needed on every floor, but that's another complications. And many tenants don't want an in-unit staircase cutting into their space and bifurcating their living space.
number of stairs are about logistics of number of people needing to use them, and fire safety.
That apartment in Seattle is awesome. Most apartments in Canada make me sad
I lived most of my life in 13-storey buildings (3 different) with 1 staircase 2 elevators. These are pretty common in Brazil. The first one was an X shaped building with 8 apts/floor, all 2-bedrooms, second was identical but with 3 bedrooms per apt. Fire spreading was a non concern since all corridors between apartments were granite clad with no flammable materials.
As someone who survived an apartment fire. It's not the fire you have to worry about, it's the smoke.
@@EvelynDayless Good point. I once lived in a 10-story apartment that had two fires while I lived in it. There were two staircases and two elevators. Individual units were somewhat fireproof, and both staircases had cement walls and airtight, fireproof doors on all floors. Even with these precautions and very little air movement between floors, the smoke was unpleasant.
@@EvelynDayless Sure, but if nothing burns, you don't have much fire. It's curtains and furnites catching fire, not the building. And it very very rarely jumps from one appartment to the next, so the fire doesn't get larger.
I'm from Finland, country for top fire deaths. Most of these accidents happen in small houses. Reasons we are on top are saunas and cold weather so we need much of warming.
Plenty of especially older 3-4-5 story apartment buildings here in Copenhagen has a front stair and a rear stair that are separate, with the rear one often being more compact and less presentable overall. This of course takes up space, only as they aren't connected to each other by a hallway they do not create a division on each floor. Surely something like that could work in the US also.
The two stair case solution went away with buildings having stairs made fire proof ie. using stone rather that wood, and just the use of stone or concrete overall - something which is the norm in most of Europe even when talking one family homes.
The back staircase was also for the usage of the outhouse before the times of indoor plumbing so it wasn't just fireproofing that made them unnecessary.
This was the perfect answer to a question I hadn't yet fully thought to ask. What outdated codes and building practices are preventing small, low-cost apartments from being viable infill projects to downtown areas across North American cities? This is great work and helps draw awareness to the fire safety aspect. Narrow street alleys are often prevented from becoming a reality due to concern about large fire trucks accessing the street. This forces us to keep building wide "stroads" through our residential neighborhoods, as mentioned in the book Strong Towns.
there are plenty of historical buildings in inner cities that people could live on but, no one wants to because of the demographics of these places. thats much more of an issue than building codes. same reason why public transport in america is bad too.
Doesn't help that, for a lot of people in America, "demographics" begins and ends with total population density and the fact we have as much unused contingent land area to use, our culture began to take that for granted and now we're obsessed with solitude and personal bubbles as much as possible
@@JonCrs10 no i guess peoples problems with "demographics" is that they dont want to get shot
Fire safety codes. Bedroom windows. You are more likely to get trapped in a bedroom because if you’re awake, you are more likely to notice a fire and go use the stairs that are required to be nearby because your side of the building might be the one on fire and you don’t want to get jammed up in the single existing staircase with all the other people on the other side. An acceptable alternative to the second interior staircase would be having the fire escape all across one or two sides of the building. But that still works best on the bedroom windows, so you don’t have to jump out and kill yourself trying to escape the flames if you wake up with your apartment on fire. Which still restricts where the bedrooms can go. They have to line up somewhere. Either on the back of the building where most of the extra space on the lot usually is, over the parking. And you could descend to the roof of the parking structure and then have an access way down from there. Or both ends of the building could have the bedrooms/fire escapes, which still results in a wider building space, but the fire escapes could wrap around a bit as well to let the bedrooms be placed in more places.
I will gladly take our strict fire codes because many a person died for those codes to be in place today. It’s nice to know I have multiple exits from my building and windows inside the bedroom to escape from.
@wilson4180 I prefer building houses out of fire resistant materials, as we do here in Europe.
@@LRM12o8 Those fire resistant materials have costs as well. Stone, brick, concrete and other masonry are more likely to collapse in earthquakes and some kinds of storms (without specific structural enhancements). Cement (base material of concrete) also has a huge environmental footprint. In addition, structures made mostly of concrete, brick, stone, steel, and other forms of masonry are hard to make energy efficient.
This last point alone is why in the USA you'll increasingly frequently find newer buildings with steel & concrete cores; steel reinforced wood floor structures with cementboard (fire & water protection); wood walls with gypsum-based drywall; an outer wrap of insulation; and a brick, steel with glass, composite, or concrete fascia.
Compromises will be required, the real question is how to balance it all out. In the USA we chose "will likely burn to the ground eventually if the fire isn't put out, but hopefully gives everybody a minimum of 20 minutes to escape" as our basis for standards.
@@wilson4180 was hoping someone would say this. It's easy to say "hurr gurr muh regulations" but what few regulations the US has are usually written in blood.
I would imagine that with the advent of new, non-flamable building materials and other technologies, you could simply start relaxing some restrictions--such as rather than simply requiring the two separate staircases, make the requirement that you adhere to either these old codes or build a certain percentage of the complex out of non-flamable materials. That way instead of completely phasing out old codes, you could update them continually as building techniques evolve.
My guess it’s the classics: zoning laws, setback ordinances, parking requirements, minimum floor size, minimum lot size, maximum dwelling height, maximum units per acre, blah blah blah the American specialties. Regulate the good stuff away, don’t regulate the bad stuff
Don't forget: Handicapped Accessible.
@@laurie7689most cities are way more handicap accessible than suburbs. I don’t think ADA regulations play a big part here
Given the recent discussion around this (which Uytae has definitely seen) and political changes in our province (BC), I suspect a big part of this video will be about single-stair reform. Canada is the most restrictive developed country in the world around that, and the US is tied for second. So not any of the above, but it does somewhat tie into accessibility because larger elevators required by building codes in the US and Canada can affect the form and viability of apartment projects.
Edit: yes, yes it was :)
@@DarrienGlasserthey do. New construction for multi family or even renovation in our city iirc 3+ stories has to have an elevator and ramp access. Of course some developers are trying to get around it or shoving the ramp and elevator in the back of the building next to the trash dumpsters
Man, these are great videos! I really hope some people with power see these and start making better decisions and policies and become willing to take calculated risks rather than follow the status quo that most of them, unfortunately, do. You’re doing everyone in the AEC industry and the general public a tremendous service!
I've been waiting for someone to do a video on single-loaded vs double-loaded corridors. Fantastic video!
6:00: The scissor staircase also doesn't fix this problem. Sure, there are two staircases, but if one of them is full of flames or smoke, BOTH are full of flames or smoke.
Given cases like what happened at Grenfell tower (only one staircase), I think that regulators might be in the right on this one. Fireproofing only goes so far and the safest thing to do in a fire is get out of the building. Having fire codes that focus on that is a good thing.
Yes, a 24-storey tower block clad in highly-combustible materials is certainly compareable to 2-3 storey apartments.
Grenfell Tower was a whole different issue. Two staircases wouldn't have made a difference.
@@ac1646 Sort of. The main focus of fire codes for apartment buildings in the US is alerting people inside of a fire, so alarms, and getting them out, usually meaning multiple staircases with a minimum separation to keep the exit route from being blocked.
The focus in the UK was on isolating apartments from each other to keep fires from spreading within the building. Before the cladding was put on, that might have worked, but the cladding and shitty new window frames gave it a way to spread, and the firefighters told them to stay put instead of escaping early on when they might have been able to. As the fire spread, it cut off their ability to escape through the one staircase.
If there had been another way out and the first focus had been telling people to leave the building as soon as the fire was detected, the death toll would have been lower and even the UK's fire investigators have said that.
@@JohnSmith-dp2jd Hi John. Thanks for your response. It's heartbreaking that the focus here in the UK is to 'stay put'. It's a mindset that was so entrenched, that no-one in charge thought to change plans when the fire clearly wasn't under control from the outset.
I understand the idea behind the US two stair system, but its true value is in the ethos of 'get everyone out.' I do believe the one staircase that was available in Grenfell would have been enough if the thought process was different to the one we had. 😢😢
RIP the 72
comparing a 2-6 story to a 24 story is pretty dumb
Two ways down rather than a hard line of two staircases. Sharing an outdoor emergency set of staircases between buildings would be one way. Fires are of course a major concern. Since I live in the US, more escape routes from a shooting are also nice.
They built a nice square recently in Alpharetta near Atlanta. They made one residential apartment I'm impressed with there. It looks like old fashioned brick rowhouses from New York City, with large windows, nice decorative trim, etc. But it's actually a large, like a whole block long, like in your video, apartment building. And they have a parking garage in the middle of the building too for residents, with an entrance in the back so you dont see it. So it's a modern large building, disguised to look like a bunch of vintage brick rowhouses. Pretty cool. Edit- Also i forgot to say the ground floor in front is shops.
We have these types of apartments in the Northside of Chicago. I lived in 2 different ones back in the 1990s, in the Roger's Park neighborhood. Both were absolutely beautiful buildings.
I feel like you get into the next step of urbanization we need to talk about. Thanks for what you do!
I liked the bike storage in the building in Seattle. When I lived in apartments, I always had to carry the bike inside my unit if I wanted safe storage.
I lived in one apartment complex that had a basement room for bikes. Anyone who had a bike could use it.
I have friends who have to store their bike on their balcony or indoors, so they installed strong hooks on an inside wall to hang the bike out of the way.
I love the layout of the house you visited 😍 it's nice to have a small courtyard in the middle so that they can open two windows (front and back) to create an air current and effectively ventilate the apartment !
The thing is, there's NOTHING stopping buildings from being built like that today, just with a second stairwell. The reason they don't is it costs more (less units available). The two staircases thing is important. Throwing up the fire deaths per capita chart was VERY misleading since it didn't include TYPE of housing, trying to compare a bunch of rural wood frame homes to countries where concrete construction is far more common really skews the results. Show me a charge that compares apples to apples, i.e. number of deaths per capita per building type, i.e. low rise, high rise, detached home, etc. Only then can you push that turning down the requirements is safe.
@@repatch43 I'm not sure what your point is, but I live in Western Europe so ... concrete buildings and single staircases in homes and "small" apartments is normal to me.
@@killiansirishbeer My point is we don't have data showing whether two stair cases saves lives or not. The chart as presented didn't prove it one way or another.
And risk of fire death might be VERY different when you've got a structure made out of concrete vs one made out of wood.
We need proper data before making a change to the rules, we can't just say 'ahh, it'll be alright'
@@repatch43 Thank you for your response, I now understand what you mean and think you are right 👍
@@repatch43 i live in Austria, which ranked 3rd on the list. The next door neighbour of a relative had a fire and his appartment only suffered minor damages. Above and below were more impacted because of the water. If you sufficiently fire proof the buildings the fires are contained.
Of course it would be better to have the stats you asked for, but you would think the general stats would show this. More people can die in an apartment fire than a single family house fire.
You did a good job on this one! I want to live in an apt that has 2 or 3 directions for light to come in! Think of the mental health benefits! And having smaller buildings, with more aesthetically pleasing apts to live in also creates a stronger sense of community for those who live in them 😊 I love some of the co-op housing in Denmark, where foot traffic from apts flow into open, interesting public areas of the building.
I liked that tour at the end. I wish we had more apartments quite like that, but affordable.
Excellent video! I've also found that one of the biggest issues in eliminating or scaling back this building code or other codes is the "5 over 1" design; this allows for stick framing multiple stories above a ground floor concrete structure. Like you mentioned, if we had stronger, more fire resistant apartment/mutli-zoned buildings, that would ease people's minds about the possibility of a flame up. The "5 over 1" design is huge in the US, especially down here in the CLT area as it's easy to manipulate previous designs to fit a new land plot and it's much cheaper to build. I'm all for affordability for both the developer and apartment resident, but it's SO boring from a design and uniqueness standpoint. Europe and Japan definitely have us beat in city beautification. Plus, the smaller the apartment or multi-zoned buildings, the easier it is to design walkable cities.
@AboutHere: Small correction at 3:40. The building for which you are showing a floor plan is located in Gatineau, QC, not in Quebec City. :)
For a large apartment block, you could give each unit both front and rear windows by removing the central corridor and putting a staircase between each unit and one at each end, for N+1 staircases (where N is the number of units). End units, with adjacent exterior walls, could be made half depth (maybe even a bit wider than the central units) and still have two window walls for N-1 staircases.
Each unit would then have access to two staircases. It wouldn't take up much extra room, because the extra space required for the stairs would replace the space required for the common corridor that is now removed.
That building in Seattle looks amazing. I always wondered why finding three bedroom units was so difficult (and expensive) and why they are always on the end of the hallway. Now it makes sense.
I would love to have my family live in a place like that one shown. Instead we are in suburbia.
Montreal's very quaint walk-ups with exterior staircases was a simple way to maximize the interior space. That said, I still don't know if this is the best solution for a city with a long and snowy winter
Excellent content and thanks for illuminating these issues so that hopefully it can spark discussion on how to more effectively deal with our housing crisis.
Where I live in the US every new build is wood frame, because it’s fast and cheap. I wish we could have more masonry and steel builds.
Talked to some realtors last year and it’s not like 3-bedroom units are that popular.
One developer sold so few 3-bedroom units during presale they decided to break many 3-bedroom units into 1-bedroom and 2-bedroom units (which leads to terrible layouts)
I feel like most people who need three bed rooms will be families. And they will want a single family home. I haven't been in many apartments but having three people in a apartment seems rough. They are just so small. It makes a bit of since that 3 bed rooms don't seem to do well.
That is only an America and Canada problem....also extra fuel to the fire they charge so much for a 3 bedroom since they are so rare here that a house is cheaper.
I live in a low income senior building, we only have windows on one side. Not in the bathroom or kitchen.
There’s something not being addressed, ADA in the US. New construction needs to be accessible depending on the building. Stairs don’t do anything for someone using a Walker, rollator, wheelchair, etc.
And that's why God invented elevators (not really, but you get what I mean). Elevators have to be installed in order to meet ADA guidelines.
@@wturner777 of course. But the video didn’t address ADA/elevators. Just stairs.
The video mentioned the staircase includes one elevator.
@@wturner777but you can’t use a staircase if someone pulls a fire alarm or it goes off.
The elevator is programmed to go down to the main floor.
This 2 staircase rule is stupid!
If a fire alarm goes off, the elevator goes down to the main floor and stays there.
What if the stairs aren’t accessible?!
Good stuff. Canada and Vancouver especially way over regulated and are full of silly rules that limit development and make building more time consuming and more expensive. Keep making this kind of content!’
Could it be the fact that the government used to directly build millions of homes for its citizens? No, it's the regulations!
Imagine if every car had to have a kilo of gold in it. Just HAD to.
There are just as many regulations in Europe, they just regulate buildings to not be made of wood, whereas we regulate to compensate for buildings being made of wood.
@@callowaymotorcompany Clearly not. Sensical regulation, maybe, but not mandatory parking and minimum yard sizes. That bullshit is strictly American.
@@haydentravis3348 All of that is local zoning law though. Not really what people think of as "regulations" in this context.
The difference there is European (and global, tbh) zoning and code is generally not done at a local level. Nimbys ruining everything they touch is not really a regulations issue, if anything its the opposite. A lack of "big government" allows small time people with small time thinking to dictate policy over a massive swath of the country.
More national regulations to take power away from selfish local level players would fix things, a lot.
Another weakness of the Canadian building code is that it does not discern between concrete and masonry construction and light steel or aluminum construction in any way regarding automatic sprinkler systems. It is rare to see a fire sprinkler system in a fully concrete or masonry building in Europe, but they are very common in steel-framed buildings.
I’m in Kentucky and the housing market here over the last 7-8 years is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Homes that were bought for $130K in 2015 are now being sold for $590k. I’m talking about tiny, disgusting, poorly built 950 square foot shit boxes in quite mediocre neighborhoods. Then you’ve got Better, average sized homes in nicer neighborhoods that were $300K+ 10 years ago selling for $750k+ now. Wild times.
I suggest you offset your real estate and get into stocks, A recession as bad it can be, provides good buying opportunities in the markets if you’re careful and it can also create volatility giving great short time buy and sell opportunities too
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