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Exit Strategy: The Case for Single-Stair Egress
Forum: Reforming U.S. building codes to permit single-stair apartment buildings would facilitate cost-effective and higher-density housing.
By contrast, single-stair buildings across Europe tend to have shallower floor plates, “floor-through” light on at least two sides of each unit, and a shared central courtyard. Older American cities also feature outstanding examples of these “garden apartments”: New York’s first garden-apartment blocks, in Jackson Heights, Queens, were celebrated in Architectural Record in 1920 for their array of unit layouts and variety of outdoor spaces. In Jackson Heights, for example, whole-block developments are composed of many buildings in series, each governed by its own co-op board, and each, with 20 or so units arranged around a single stair, is small enough for residents to get to know each other.
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