So, the automatic text description pulled from YouTube gives context but doesn’t summarize the video. How does breaking rules create better apartments? What rules? What apartments? Better in what way?
The two staircase rule for houses above two (or three) stories is pretty shit, if that is so and results in these rather terrible middle floor houses with appartments only facing one direction. The rest seems to come down to zoning regulation (single family houses, front lawn requirement…) and the rule of “building a house costs money that somebody has to pay”.
- Double stairways: every apartment must be connected to at least two sets of stairways, this rule comes from a time when fire prevention was lacking, but nowadays it only gets in the way of designing units with more rooms/windows because geometry.
- Maximum floor space: what it says on the tin. There is a maximum set of space each floor can use and this incentives making narrow hallways and make away with communal spaces in favor of packing as many small units as you can.
- Building setback: every building needs to be a set amount of space away from the sidewalk, which means a lot of space in every lot is wasted as it legally can’t be used for anything. Without this rule you could design adjacent lots to share a big courtyard that can be used as a community space.
Oh man. The level of discourse in north america seems really depressing.
And what is it with the concern of noise insulation i always read in comments when it comes to appartments, are there no regulations in place that would make this problem be just gone?
Do you mean regulation that would require sound dampening, or regulation that would prevent people from being loud in the first place?
The former will vary by municipality and have huge exceptions for older buildings. The latter is effectively unenforceable.
If your country knows a way for noise pollution to “just be gone”, please share it with us. Please.
Yeah, sound dampening regulation. I mean it’s not that i have never heard anybody complain about their neighbours noise or them hearing phantom noise, so “just be gone” is maybe a bit over the top, although new appartment buildings are very well sound proofed.
The social aspect… i guess people just don’t usually use their powertools in the night. Is more like a social contract but you could call the cops for that.
I am just surprised how often this is being brought up in appartment discussion in NA, i don’t think it is that big of a problem here. Top comment on that video is “4 bedroom apartments with good sound isolation from neighbours would be SICK”, which seems kind of normal to me, although 4 bedrooms sure are on the bigger end.
Mia sorella in Cristo non dimenticare di mettere di quale paese si parla nel titolo :P
