Single-stair buildings are not the new ADUs, because where ADUs have almost completely failed to live up to the hype (outside of parts of California and other isolated pockets), single-staircase buildings are a solution that could actually scale. Additionally, they are more effective at creating transit supportive density and bone fide urban environments. ADUs have been beat to death, and while they have their merits and it's disappointing that they are still illegal in far too many jurisdictions, they were never going to move the needle on the housing crisis, despite whatever whitepaper AARP puts out next. Hopefully we can see the proliferation of single-staircase buildings in residential urban neighborhoods and inner suburbs with good connections to walkable districts. These are way more worth our time as planners and activists than ADUs.
Good points. I agree that ADUs have not been that successful at addressing the housing crisis. I do think they have been successful at being a type of housing that red/blue, left/right lawmakers and coalitions support. I think they could be a gateway to more types of missing middle housing. My hope here is that there are other types of housing like single-stair buildings that can follow that aspect of success (bipartisan backing, etc).
If jurisdictions were comfortable relaxing code standards, they could allow developers to build single-stair buildings in exchange for an affordable housing set aside.
This sounds like the "tenement" buildings common in Glasgow and Edinburgh, where I lived, typically 2-3 units per floor off a central staircase. "tenement" is a building type there, and can be quite high end as well as basic working class housing. They are a great housing model, lived in by many thousands.
But you never once typed the word "elevator" in your story, although your plans of double loaded corridor buildings all have them, and all your single stair plans do not. Six stories, and increasingly in the US, three stories with no elevator is a non-starter, especially in any building with a penny of federal subsidy, as non-accessible, and privately are hard to market. Scots trod up 4 flights of stairs in buildings with 12' ceilings, Americans grumble at a second floor walk up. It's not building the number of stairs--your two adjacent plans show a city block where the single stair buildings collectively have more staircases than the single building with the double loaded corridor--that drive up building costs, it's provision of elevators.
While double loaded corridors waste a lot of space on corridors v. the single stair group of buildings, if you made upper floor units accessible, or even "visitable", you'd need at least three elevators for those three single-stair buildings, and their ongoing maintenance costs. With occasional down time, a single elevator building then makes upper floors inaccessible, or inescapable for residents of upper floors with mobility limitations every time the one elevator is out of service, or tied up for a move.
I wouldn't want to live in a double loaded corridor building for the reason you pointed out, no cross ventilation, and having only one compass exposure...okay, maybe a corner unit, like the ones at Hopkinson House or Society Hill Towers. And, I've liked living in apartments in the past in the type of building layout you are promoting. But, I'd contend that it's the need for a shared group of elevators-at least 2-3 per building--that drives the need for a corridor building, not the need for two means of egress.
In Europe all the single stair new buildings have elevators for every stair. They are small, standardized, reliable and economical, unlike big North American elevators that are almost all custom built, sized for stretchers, and expensive. And very few people use them because the stairs are so attractive and generous, but they are there if you have to. Here is a great resource from a young architect in Canada where you can see lots of single stair plans with elevators in the Manual of Illegal Floor Plans https://secondegress.ca/Manual-of-Illegal-Floor-Plans
If you are living in a dense urban environment, why would you ever open the windows? The outside air is not clean. It has plenty of diesel and gasoline emissions, pollen, noise, and in certain parts of the US annual wildfire smoke. Let's stick with the mantra of "build it tight and vent it right" and use more ERVs & HRVs.
I would hate to not be able to open windows in my home in dense, urban Philadelphia. Not everyone wants to live in a tightly controlled indoor environment with no connection to the outdoors, even if it is sometimes loud or dirty
Single-stair buildings are not the new ADUs, because where ADUs have almost completely failed to live up to the hype (outside of parts of California and other isolated pockets), single-staircase buildings are a solution that could actually scale. Additionally, they are more effective at creating transit supportive density and bone fide urban environments. ADUs have been beat to death, and while they have their merits and it's disappointing that they are still illegal in far too many jurisdictions, they were never going to move the needle on the housing crisis, despite whatever whitepaper AARP puts out next. Hopefully we can see the proliferation of single-staircase buildings in residential urban neighborhoods and inner suburbs with good connections to walkable districts. These are way more worth our time as planners and activists than ADUs.
Good points. I agree that ADUs have not been that successful at addressing the housing crisis. I do think they have been successful at being a type of housing that red/blue, left/right lawmakers and coalitions support. I think they could be a gateway to more types of missing middle housing. My hope here is that there are other types of housing like single-stair buildings that can follow that aspect of success (bipartisan backing, etc).
If jurisdictions were comfortable relaxing code standards, they could allow developers to build single-stair buildings in exchange for an affordable housing set aside.
I think this is a neat idea, particularly in a pilot phase before adopting the policy at scale.
This sounds like the "tenement" buildings common in Glasgow and Edinburgh, where I lived, typically 2-3 units per floor off a central staircase. "tenement" is a building type there, and can be quite high end as well as basic working class housing. They are a great housing model, lived in by many thousands.
But you never once typed the word "elevator" in your story, although your plans of double loaded corridor buildings all have them, and all your single stair plans do not. Six stories, and increasingly in the US, three stories with no elevator is a non-starter, especially in any building with a penny of federal subsidy, as non-accessible, and privately are hard to market. Scots trod up 4 flights of stairs in buildings with 12' ceilings, Americans grumble at a second floor walk up. It's not building the number of stairs--your two adjacent plans show a city block where the single stair buildings collectively have more staircases than the single building with the double loaded corridor--that drive up building costs, it's provision of elevators.
While double loaded corridors waste a lot of space on corridors v. the single stair group of buildings, if you made upper floor units accessible, or even "visitable", you'd need at least three elevators for those three single-stair buildings, and their ongoing maintenance costs. With occasional down time, a single elevator building then makes upper floors inaccessible, or inescapable for residents of upper floors with mobility limitations every time the one elevator is out of service, or tied up for a move.
I wouldn't want to live in a double loaded corridor building for the reason you pointed out, no cross ventilation, and having only one compass exposure...okay, maybe a corner unit, like the ones at Hopkinson House or Society Hill Towers. And, I've liked living in apartments in the past in the type of building layout you are promoting. But, I'd contend that it's the need for a shared group of elevators-at least 2-3 per building--that drives the need for a corridor building, not the need for two means of egress.
In Europe all the single stair new buildings have elevators for every stair. They are small, standardized, reliable and economical, unlike big North American elevators that are almost all custom built, sized for stretchers, and expensive. And very few people use them because the stairs are so attractive and generous, but they are there if you have to. Here is a great resource from a young architect in Canada where you can see lots of single stair plans with elevators in the Manual of Illegal Floor Plans https://secondegress.ca/Manual-of-Illegal-Floor-Plans
If you are living in a dense urban environment, why would you ever open the windows? The outside air is not clean. It has plenty of diesel and gasoline emissions, pollen, noise, and in certain parts of the US annual wildfire smoke. Let's stick with the mantra of "build it tight and vent it right" and use more ERVs & HRVs.
I would hate to not be able to open windows in my home in dense, urban Philadelphia. Not everyone wants to live in a tightly controlled indoor environment with no connection to the outdoors, even if it is sometimes loud or dirty