Interesting writeup, but the Ghost Ship is an extreme example of what goes wrong - you couldn't make a place more of a fire hazard if you tried.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Oakland_warehouse_fire
As you say you could hardly make a more hazardous environment if you tried. Wooden pallets for stairs?!
How shitty of a landlord can you be that you wouldn't prioritize people's safety.
A Hackerspace in Germany was proud of its smartphone-activated door lock.
I was less impressed on their open house event when I saw firsthand how they struggled to open it for several minutes (with no mechanical override on the inside!), while dozens of guests were there.
When I voiced my safety concerns they simply didn't seem to understand. I mean it's just a fun hack, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Oakland_warehouse_fire#Cr...
Also that's crazy about that smart door... Pretty sure that's against fire code if it's one of the only exits. Ignorance isn't an excuse when other people's lives are concerned, either.
I think you guys are just talking past eachother due to a disparity of definitions, and otherwise are actually in agreement.
In British, I never knew what they were called ("those 'Push Bar To Open' things on fire doors"), apparently "panic bar". As Wikipedia[1] says, "In Europe, the use of panic bars is generally confined to code required applications. On the other hand, in US and Canadian commercial building design panic bars are frequently used even when not required by code."
The only place I see them is designated emergency exits, the type which are normally unopenable from outside and often alarmed. The main doors leading out of a large auditorium don't use them – these don't need to lock, so they use free-swinging doors. The emergency doors at the front/side would use them.
It was a grossly negligent situation. The whole place was brimming with wooden crap mixed with electrical junk for lights and sound. Words can't do justice to how much of a tinder box it was, the photos left me speechless when I investigated back on the day of the fire.
It's the usual question on how to balance the trade off between safety and freedom. I myself am more inclined towards the latter.
It looks cool/arty, and OK to wander through in an afternoon, but it also looks like the last place I'd expect to find a party.
The closest place I can think of for a similar labyrinth of clutter is Camden Stables Market in London [0][1]. But it's a daytime clothing, art and antiques market, not an event space. You can see the green emergency exit signs in some of the photos; doors have notices things like "This door to be open during trading hours".
For your tradeoff, how low do you propose we go?
[0] Camden Town has several markets. If you've been, this is the one you're least likely to have visited, and it's furthest from the station.
[1] https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/camden-lock-stables-market...
In Hamburg we have really nice planetarium. Recently a guy in a wheelchair wasn't allowed to just attend the show sitting next to a seating row because in case of a fire he might block the corridor and who would be able to quickly evacuate him? Of course the reasoning makes sense but where do we end up when everything needs to be extremely safe or is otherwise forbidden?
This development is a systemic effect which cannot be stopped as far as I can tell. The desire for freedom will be satisfied simply by people refusing to be super strict in practice. Also too many regulations usually will be harder to enforce.
Apparently not, according to the history of such things.