I HAVE NO POSITION ON THE SINGLE STAIRWAY QUESTION.
I HAVE NO POSITION ON THE SINGLE STAIRWAY QUESTION.
I HAVE NO POSITION ON THE SINGLE STAIRWAY QUESTION.
I HAVE NO POSITION ON THE SINGLE STAIRWAY QUESTION.
I HAVE NO POSITION ON THE SINGLE STAIRWAY QUESTION.
I HAVE NO POSITION ON THE SINGLE STAIRWAY QUESTION.
I apologize for the caps and the repetition, but given the state of the discourse, I was afraid that anything less emphatic would let us sink back into the mire. This is a post about the dysfunctional discussion, not about the underlying questions. It is entirely possible that our current fire safety laws around building access are onerous and that a good cost-benefit would find that we should phase some of them out. I can't comment on that because I haven't seen a good overview of the data and consensus expert opinion on the subject. Unfortunately, neither have any of the other people who learned about the matter from a spate of articles from Slate, Lawyers, Guns and Money, New York Magazine, Slow Boring (Matt Yglesias), etc.
Instead, we get something like this from Eric Levitz.
Thus, the two-stair model comes with considerable architectural and economic costs. And it’s far from clear that multiple stairways meaningfully increase fire safety. Many European nations where single-stair designs are dominant have lower rates of fires than the U.S. Mandating sprinkler systems and other low-cost fire precautions would likely compensate for any diminution in safety resulting from a switch to a single-stair standard.
We get a couple of weaselly phrases like "far from clear" and "would likely compensate," and a standard other-countries-do-this-and-they're-fine arguments not dissimilar in form to the claims that smoking reduces heart disease in France (which is once again -- don't make me bring out the caps lock -- not to say that the comparison here is invalid, just that you have to be really careful with this kind of causal reasoning). It's also worth noting that the single link included doesn't point to actual data on the subject.
The closest I've seen to an actual discussion of the safety issues is from this widely cited Slate piece by Henry Grabar.
The specter of big structure fires—like the fire at London’s Grenfell Tower, the single-stair housing project whose defective façade panels caught fire in 2017, killing 71 people—is what reformers like Eliason and Speckert are up against. But building fires are much less common than they were when single-stair rules were codified, to the extent that most city dwellers roll their eyes at office fire drills and curse their hyperactive apartment smoke alarms. Data from the World Fire Statistics Centre show Canada, for example, has little to show for its two-story limit.
Putting aside the people complain about fire drills and smoke alarms so fire danger is not that big a deal (how many safety measures do people not complain about?), Grabar does link to actual data, which would be an improvement except for a few things: I get a 404 when I click on the link; it refers to Canada housing which is a highly problematic outlier (hell, I'm a YIMBY when it comes to Canada); the link isn't to the World Fire Statistics Centre. Instead it goes to the site of Speckert who seems to have built his career around advocating for this one issue and who presumably is picking data points that support his position; You might get the impression that the organization that puts out this data is on the same page as Grabar.
On that last point. I'm not sure which center/centre we're talking about (Speckert's site isn't much help). It could be this apparently dormant report from the Geneva Association, an insurance industry group, or it could be from the
International Technical Committee for the Prevention and Extinction of
Fire (French: Comité Technique International de Prévention et
d'Extinction du Feu - CTIF). GA doesn't appear to have said anything about the single stairway question but CTIF has, and if you search their site, here's what you'll find.
One single staircase for a 570 feet building
Concerns are recently rising in the UK about high rise and mid rise building safety in general, and it has been suggested rescue staircases should be designed differently based on what happened in the Grenfell Tower fire. Since an extra staircase would take away space which could be monetized as residential areas, it is thought that developers are resisting putting in an extra staircase, despite safety concerns.
The UK building code only requires one single staircase, even for a building as high as the Cuba Street Tower.
The international building code however - which is adopted by many countries and US states but not the UK - requires that, residential blocks need to be built with at least two staircases if the building is taller than four storeys.
One of the main safety concerns is that residents would need to use the same staircase as the firefighters would be using during a fire - which could lead to smoke inhalation for the residents trying to exit the building.
In an article in The Guardian on January 10, 2022, UK fire experts criticized the design of the Cuba Street Tower, a new 51 storey apartment high rise close to Canary Wharf in London. The apartment tower is planned to house more than 420 apartments and more than 650 bedrooms.
London Fire Brigades writes Letter of Concern re: single staircase in a new 173 meter building
Despite that all apartments in the Cuba Street project above 11 meters are planned to be equipped with sprinklers, fire safety experts feel evacuations may still be needed in case of a fire.
An article in the Daily Mail, claimed on January 13 that the 428-flat tower block will be one of the tallest residential buildings in the UK. It will be 570 feet (173 meters) which is more than two-and-a-half times the height of Grenfell Tower.
According to the same Daily Mail article, the London Fire Brigades have serious concerns about the single staircase and has addressed the city in a Letter of Concern:
"... We do not believe that sufficient justification has been provided for the tall single stair approach, nor do we agree that particular aspects of the design are compatible for such an approach. Furthermore, in our opinion there are insufficient facilities provided to support the safe egress for disabled occupants...".
Arnold Tarling, a chartered surveyor and fire safety expert, said in the Guardian article: “It is utter madness that this is still allowed.”
Tarling allegedly has recently inspected a newly built apartment tower in the same area of London and discovered serious failings that would mean residents might not be safe to stay in their flats in a fire.
He then referenced the recent deadly Bronx fire, where many casualties could have been avoided had fire escapes been installed in the building. The worst-case of having only a single staircase would be “another Bronx fire, another Grenfell, or another Lakanal type fire”, he said.
Despite the impression you'd get from Slate, LGM, New York Magazine, Slow Boring, and pretty much every pundit who weighs in here, the safety of these proposals is still very much up for debate and actual fire fighters have landed firmly on the worried side.
The entire housing discussion- - if we can even call it that (discussion implies an exchange of ideas)-- has become so overwrought and distorted that it no longer even vaguely reflects the actual questions that need to be discussed. In this case we have a dispute between developers and architects on one hand and fire safety experts in First Responders on the other over the issue of safety regulations. It is enormously telling that Grabar without supporting arguments or even comment puts the reformers on the side of the first group. Historically, this is not the way this breaks.
None of this is to say, or even to suggest, that the single stairway people are wrong. There are any number of examples of excessive and onerous regulations with unexpected consequences that need to be revised or removed entirely. In case you missed the first six lines of my post, I don't have a position on that, but I do know that what we're getting from the pundits is not helping us make an informed decision.
For an example of a much better example of an argument for fewer safety regulations, I send you to Mitchell and Webb.
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