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Comment by krembanan | Hacker News Reader

Are there no laws against this in the U.S? In Norway there are building codes that prohibits bedrooms without a real window.

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It varies from place to place but, typically for a room in a single-family home to be considered a bedroom, it needs 2 egress points, the second usually being a window. I imagine similar codes are in place for multi-unit buildings.

This proposed building has 2 entrances for 4000 people. I cannot imagine it will pass fire code, or could effectively be evacuated in an emergency. Astounding that someone thought it was a good idea.

Multi unit buildings are REGULARLY build with ZERO window exits.

This idea that a 60 floor skyscraper is going to do opening window "exits" over 300 foot drops is insanity and disgusting.

Please look up condominium skyscrapers before talking about window exists being required from a housing code standpoint.

They probably compensated the lack of 2 egress points, by having other extra fire suppression measures (e.g. sprinklers, firewalls).

2 entrances != 2 exits.

This design isn't even in the same field as American fire codes. I don't know any jurisdiction in the country in which this could get permitted, certainly not California.

The usual expectation is total time for a fire to cause an alarm, all occupants of a building to respond to an alarm, and make their way to a fire rated area, usually a stairwell, is 2.5 minutes.

Fire code exit requirements depend on the construction style, materials, suppression equipment and use.

You can have a bedroom with only one exit (the requirement you reference is for a second exit, not a window) if walls/doors are rated high enough and you have sprinklers.

This building is being built in an area with some of the STRICTEST fire codes in America - just in case folks reading get the wrong idea. In fact, condo skyscrappers are in my view much more risky (the time to exit a 50 foot skyscrapper can be very long).

Compounding this, historic building in CA was sometimes very poor by modern standards (all wood tinder boxes). So this may very well be a major upgrade in safety over existing housing stock.

Building codes, at least in my part of the US, dictate that in order for a room in a home to be a bedroom it must have a window. Public buildings probably have different rules.

Are such laws necessary? if you want to not live there, don't.

We need laws to save people from themselves and from being taken advantage of.

If fire codes were not a thing, developers would build terrible fire traps and people would rent them. There would inevitably be many deaths; this has happened all throughout history prior to modern building codes (and of course still happens today[1]).

The free market is a lie and impossible; you cannot expect the common person to be an expert on everything. We need (and you should want) baseline standards to ensure a reasonable quality of life for our society - think automobile safety standards and building codes.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire

>you cannot expect the common person to be an expert on everything

Not with that attitude.

This thread is full of people discussing a topic. Your comment here and elsewhere in this thread doesn't add much - "hey anybody with anything critical to say about anything, just don't use it" applies equally to ANY topic, and isn't the great insight you seem to think bears repeating.

[EDIT: sorry, that probably comes across as harsh. My point is that this whole site is for people to discuss things, and your comment(s) seem to advocate that people stop doing exactly that]

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