@@Bioniking Yes! and its great to see it presented without the snark so many channels have that makes it hard to share with people who aren't already on board with urbanism.
Those are pretty standard in Germany. Stone houses, in a row with one staircase leading to two big flats on each side (60 - 80 m²). With balconies and large green spaces on each side, little parking too. They are mostly 4-5 stories up, even higher if you implement elevators and they are in big cities. That's how you achieve density even in smaller cities, but also people of different ages living together - seniors and families helping each other. Not that they are really beautiful, though they can be.
Don't you have that USA/Canada? Pretty normal in the rest of the world. I live in Sweden and there's 4,5,6 room apartments. Probably some that are even larger, but probably for the rich folks. However, due to the fact that less people start family and they start it later smaller apartments are more commonplace in new developments. I mean ratio has skewed more to that.
@@rizkyadiyanto7922 with regulation by our government, yes. for some reason our govts are letting property owners charge blowing out your ass amounts of your earned cash without a national and federal level legislated regulation stating "all apartments are rent geared to income" - like, that's not a crime and also the law is made up and so is money and if politicians wanted you to stay housed, they would make sure the hours you put in to earn your money is spent affordably ON YOUR LIFE - not just on your shelter.
Hey, if you are reading this and think this is cool. You should get involved in your town to make this happen. It is surprisingly easy to get involved. Start by reaching out to your city council in writing, you can also attend meetings. You can also talk to your town planning and zoning commission. Don’t expect any be conversation to change the world though. Stick with it and push your city officials and staff to adopt newer better rules. This will take time, years. So strap in and find some friends. It’s a much better experience if you are fighting alongside friends. See if you can identify any allies on the council or planning commission or city staff. These people can be your ticket into bigger conversations. Remember, you gotta play it cool. If you go into these interactions guns blazing and pointing fingers then you aren’t going to get anywhere.
Your comment pushed me to finally stop procrastinating, and look up who my councilors are and how I can attend meetings. As it turns out, in my city you can sign up for an email list that'll tell you when meetings with the public are happening. I think to start off, I'll just attend and silently listen, since I'm super new to this. But hopefully with time, I'll learn how things work enough to be able to actually do some proper advocacy
Mixing commercial and residential is my greatest wish for housing in America. I want to live in a walkable city that doesnt require a car to buy groceries
I think the opportunity for more livable and affordable multi bedroom apartments in the 3 - 4 bedroom range is massively overlooked when it comes to people in urban areas being able to have kids.
Meanwhile there was a article in my country arguing why 2-bedroom apartments are sufficient. However that means if you have children of different gender & are uncomfortable with them sleeping in the same room, either the parents can't sleep in the same room, or someone is going to have to sleep in the living room
@@MrIansmitchell I think you misunderstood. There are indeed many factors that effect peoples decision to start a family and child care costs are definitely one. I was only pointing out that this issue of housing affordability and apartment sizes are also one of the many other factors that might keep people who would otherwise want to start a family from doing so.
When i was in London UK , a group of apartment buildings (close to battersea Park) created a 'river' going through their shared space, with trees, benches, cofees, gym etc... Because it was in the middle of all the buildings, you couldn't hear to noise from the city, just the water and the birds. It was incredible. I couldn't afford to live in those buildings, but the best part was that is was completely open for anyone to wander around, so i was spending most of my week ends, walking around the city, discovering hidden gems like this one, spending my money on nearby local shops, and public transportation. Now I'm living in Vancouver, and even though London was so much bigger, it felt way more human size.
Co-working spaces in apartments is such an amazing idea, especially now with so many people working from home and bigger apartments being so rare and expensive. Too many people are living sleeping and working in the same few feet. It’s really affecting a lot of people’s mental health.
everything good until a neighbor messes your working space. there won't be anyone to impose basic common rules like: be clean, don't make noise, and stuff.
@@cheesecake4648 Like some kind of co-worker roommate 😣. I work over the phone, I don't need a co-worker space because I need my area to be as quiet as possible. I just rent a two bedroom apartment, so one room is my bedroom and the other is my office. I'm in the process of making it a library and office, though, so hopefully it will look really nice once I'm done. I used to want just a one bedroom apartment, but after the pandemic had me working in my bedroom, I changed on that. One bedroom apartments are very difficult to find in my area anyways, so two bedrooms gives me the space I actually want. I can shut the door on the office at the end of the day and leave work behind me, which I couldn't back during the pandemic (but I also roomed with someone back then. I now also know that my mental health is better with living alone. The quiet has been golden and I love that nothing gets messed up or dirty unless I'm the one that makes it dirty. I don't have to spend so much time cleaning because my sibling roommate rarely cleaned).
Yeah I kind of dislike signs like that. It makes places feel unwelcoming, but also ignores the fact that designers and city planners don't design any spaces that are for public utility. Sure, have 65 foot wide roads that you can park a bus on, but no way are we going to buffer the sidewalk from the street with a grass strip. No way are we going to design sidewalks that aren't interrupted by driveway cuts. We'll never enforce rules about not parking across the sidewalk, you can just walk around them! Kind of makes me want to enforce vigilante urbanism.
As someone who lives with 4-5 other roommates in a "single family" home, another thing that's beneficial about 3-4 unit apartments aside from supporting nuclear families with kids is the ability for folks to have more roommates which decreases rent/allows more affordability for everyone overall who's willing to live with other housemates.
At least where I live in LA, all the new multibedroom units are designed for situations like yours instead of families. Each bedroom has its own bathroom, and in turn, the apartments are extremely expensive. Only 4-5 mid to high salary earning professionals can live in them. The majority of people I know who have kids and still rents have to live in a one bedroom, move in with their parents, move well into the desert or leave the state.
but what if studios/one-bedrooms were just priced in a way that made more sense? also realizing the govt subsidizes a lot of different industries to bring down the cost so the essentials are still affordable - if they’re able to see the yearly income levels vs. rent/housing prices, then isn’t it kinda weird they haven’t tried to intervene at all?
@@echo_eco_ethos I personally love living with like-minded people in a collective-like home environment. I found it ideal for me, my ethos, lifestyle, personality, and convenience of certain tasks like bulk buying essentials and shared household duties. I prefer it over living alone. There are many complex reasons why the government doesn't currently intervene much in housing prices unfortunately, some examples are property tax rates paying for budgets, lobbyists, rates of home ownership being higher than rates of renters at least in Canada and thus voters not incentivised by lowered housing prices as it reduces their equity, many older homeowners are banking on their house's equity for retirement and things like the amount of second mortgages on houses also impact population debts and financial stability relative to housing prices.
The issue is that either the renter or the owner must in some way pay insurance and property taxes if they want a "permanent roof" with utilities like electricity, gas and water. Because of this, many people-at least in California, where I currently reside-are living in tents. No taxes, rent, mortgages, or insurance. The number of people who tell me they live in their car that I meet amazes me. Its crazy out here!
It’s getting wild by the day. The prices of homes are quite ridiculous and Mortgage prices has been skyrocketing on a roll(currently over 7%). Sometimes i wonder if to just invest my spare cash into the stock market and wait for a housing crash or just go ahead to buy a home anyways.
@@BernardFrederick-tk7un Thank you for this tip. It was easy to find your coach. Did my due diligence on her before scheduling a phone call with her. She seems proficient considering her résumé.
I dont think housing costs are this high due to taxes or insurance, I think it's greedy property firms gobbling up all housing. We can make cheap housing happen if the government regulated rent prices and build housing themselves
@@eagleleftThere already has been a scandal of landlords across the US using this one software that uses ai to tell them how to price rent. Greed is running rampage in so many countries as it is. I sadly don't see state and national governments doing much besides just talk about fixing the housing situation
Ok, so I am one of the ~evil gatekeeper urban planners~ tasked with reviewing developers' applications, and enforcing some of the rules mentioned in the video. FWIW, my favourite home in Vancouver was a 10-storey concrete apartment, corner unit, with a lovely modest front yard with a huge tree, and a side-yard window that looked almost directly into my neighbour's shower! Definitely agree there should be a re-examination of setbacks. Most North American zoning codes (and the setbacks) were developed in an era of either big apartment buildings on big lot assemblies (e.g. the "tower in the park" model) or the single-detached house on relatively big suburban lots. In both those cases, front and rear setbacks were seen as desirable not only for green space, so-called room to breathe, but also to allow for some privacy with your neighbours. This competition envisioned a very different scenario: much denser small-lot apartment development, which will require a lot more space than the standard 50-60% single-family house footprint. Of course this will run up against traditional community expectations around green streetscapes and privacy, as well as real environmental questions about stormwater management, tree canopy, etc. When it comes to shared common spaces, I am with ya in principle, although in practice there would be hurdles to overcome. Already in many cities there are design and siting guidelines that say you should try to arrange apartments in a "checkerboard" pattern as shown in some of the submissions. But it's really difficult to force those private open spaces to be used in common, or by adjacent residents. Normally each strata or building owner wants to keep their amenity spaces private, for liability and safety/security reasons, and also so maintenance costs can be properly controlled. If that private space is opened up to other users, legal agreements are needed to spell out who's responsible, who's liable, and to protect access for everyone. Finally, the elephant in the room is cost. The reason there aren't more 3-bedroom units in the apartment market right now is because developers sell housing on a per-square foot basis, more or less, so big units are prohibitively expensive for buyers, and small units are relatively more marketable for investors. Similarly, there are certain building-size thresholds that dictate financial viability - so if your building is too tall then you need (i.e. the market wants) a second elevator which is very expensive, and same if you need underground parking. At the moment, Building Code requires apartments higher than 6 storeys to be constructed in concrete or mass timber, both of which are much, much more expensive than wood frame. And to bear all that cost, developers - and their equity partners - need to sell a certain number of units at a certain price, otherwise the project doesn't happen. So basically, absolutely yes we should be looking at both zoning and building code regulations to help remove barriers where possible, and also help educate and shift NIMBY mindsets among the community. But that's not instantly going to fix the problem, which (in my view) stems from decades of underdevelopment and rapidly inflated land values. Civil servants do want to hear pro-density feedback though - generally speaking, we're not obstructionists protecting some archaic status-quo, only trying to balance a bunch of different values and considerations as we carry out the directives of our elected decision -makers.
Thank for this perspective. Are there currently apt buildings taller than 5 stories and only one stairwell? Are they safe enough (however we measure that)?
@@geeksdo1tbetter Unfortunately architecture isn't my area of expertise so I can't offer specific examples. I do know there are lots of single-stair apartments built to contemporary (fire safe) standards in other countries around the world, which use things like sprinklering and enhanced fire-walls to boost safety. Your favourite search engine can probably lead you to some much better resources about the safety measures used for buildings of different heights and uses.
@@kayelltom Here in switzerland, multi unit homes, are basically all concrete. Then you have self closing doors, which can withstand 900°C for (new) 90 minutes (those are actually wood). Two of those to separate a underground parking from the building. Funny enough, you need neither firealarms nor sprinklers for up to 5 stories (having some maintained, fire extinguishers in the stairwell, will get you % with the insurance). above that you need special precautions, like a linked fire alarm system etc. But you almost always only need 1 stairwell for apartments. different rules for schools, business etc., they often need multiple fire escapes. As for stormwater management: Flat roof properly greened can soak at least 1 gallon of rainwater per sqft (50l / m^3), before any runoff starts. (Can still be combined with solar panels, but then you have added maintenance). Much better than a traditional roof, where all water immediately becomes runoff. Due to stringent regulation about retention on property, almost anything built these days uses flat roofs and somewhere in the green area, a retention area, where the rainwater from other impermeable surfaces is guided to. What we do have often here: A Development (something like 5-30 stairwells with each 6-10 1-3 bedroom apartments), with different owners but a association, responsible for the common areas (greeneries, parking,...). This way, you can share and the association rules, define all the aspects of liability, maintenance etc. Unlike in the US, most of the market is owned by the investors and rented out. we have a very different renters market (very strict laws, concerning changing rent, kicking people out, etc.). Mostly assets are hold by investors to maintain their "solid assets requirements", rather than to make much profit. Land value would give any American nightmares..., one of the reasons, almost all new buildings are at least medium density.
Density doesn't equal affordability. The problem is that a lot of people want to live in the same place. That is why NYC is very un- affordable even though it is very dense. The phenomenon is called induced demand where an increase in the supply of a good or service leads to an increase in its consumption. That is especially true now when mega corporations like Blackrock are buying homes left and right. Cost to build a house is more or less the same across the country. The variables are cost of the land and cost of regulations. If you want affordable housing you need Sprawl. Build more roads, more mass transit. Aim to get gas and cars cheaper. Prohibit mega corporations like Blackrock from scooping all the homes. Invest in neglected neighborhoods and Towns. People follow work. If good jobs are found not only in major cities people will have more incentive to live in small towns (cheaper land cost). Also, property taxes should be looked at so investment in the area does not push people that already live there out.
"small appartment for investors" is increasingly not viable, as many cities are pumping a lot of supply into these types. (notably, Toronto) Thats leaving the rental condo market in shambles, and no one wants to buy them as homeowners. If we intend to plan for the next decade, the shift towards larger units needs to be done yesterday.
And remember everyone, Chesterton’s Fence! If you don’t see a reason for a rule, trying to understand why it’s there before doing away with it. This video did a solid job with the staircase rule. It outline it was made for fire safety in a time when fires were more common. Getting even more alternative fire safety implements in place will help assuage the concerns of those who may be reluctant to do away with the extra stairs.
I highly doubt that insurance companies and zoning engineers in the US are really going to be willing to risk their licenses on removing requirements for a staircase. The idea of excluding stairs and some/all halls from FAR/FSI limits is superior to removing a matter of life and death.
@@szurketaltos2693 Kinda depends on where the zoning is. In a HCOL area, the zoning is more expensive than the construction and maintenance. When a developer can sell a condo for $1M, and they are given a specific FAR, they want to maximize the number of units and size of units. If the halls and stairs are not part of that calculation, then they can build more homes without concern for the ratio costing them big profits. In my area, buildings of all kinds are subject to the ratio and look into every square foot. I know one case where they were looking needing to move a wall a couple inches to make the stairs wide enough and that messed up their ratio calculations and forced a somewhat big design change in order to make up a couple inches along a long wall which turned out to be like 1,000 square feet since it was a long wall and multiple floors. They had to chop off something else to remove that 1,000 square feet. If stairs weren't part of it, it would be easier. In another situation, there is often a little space under part of the stairs on the bottom floor. A nice spot for a closet. But, in one case there were granted a limited exclusion of the stairs. But, if they enclosed that to be a closet (a networking closet), then those 9 square feet would be part of the space and mess up their ratio, and only be 1/2 high, so they lost "3-D" space so they would not enclose it. Ratios really get interesting (to me).
@@michaelpeele5739 good examples, but kind of orthogonal to what I said I think. I'm simply pointing out that stairs and hallways have a real cost to construct, not only monetary but also in constraining the rest of the floor plan (as in the video). This is similar to how parking costs money and constrains the plan (driveway, edge of property/street considerations, access to living space, etc) even if not included in the ratio.
My very first apartment was in an old 1940s built building. It occupied a single lot, and had 5 suites (2 upper floor, 2 main floor, 1 basement). I loved that space, despite it not being in great repair. Every apartment had windows on 3 sides, and a small communal yard. It was walking distance to everything. It more or less sat on the property line on 2 sides (it was a corner lot, so those sides abutted up to the city property). My next apartment, in the same neighbourhood, was a garden apartment with external walk-ups and balconies. It has windows on both ends. Still very lovely, but I missed the old 1940s one.
The only successful design is the one that gets built - at scale! The rules cited in this video are all upheld by people who prioritize their own aesthetic preferences over the desperate need for housing. We need to persuade them. That is the only way! If you're reading this, go talk to your council and city planning staff right now!
Where is this desperate need for housing? Almost all of the “homelessness” in my city is fentanyl addicts who refuse available housing because there’s one rule they can’t follow. Meanwhile we have empty buildings, and developers who claim we need to keep building and eventually the prices will drop. They haven’t. If we banned airbnb we could maybe get some more of the housing back. But these same people who claim we need to keep building also refuse to ban airbnb. None of it makes sense.
@@eugenetswong that's the point lmao. Just because someone CAN say no doesn't mean that they will. Not saying anything is worse than saying "I hate this, change it" and being rejected. But you're assuming no one is going to listen to you and what you say because... why? search your soul about that, why do you think you won't be heard? Sure you might get told no, but that's what happens sometimes. but not always! plus, they're not cutting off your arm for saying you're pissed and you're not in any actual pain. if you care enough about something, you can send an email saying "I care about this, here's why", even if a "no" might loom You're giving up before you've even started and that's pussy shit. that's what people profitting off your suffering want! (that's landlords in this case). DO NOT GIVE UP. city councilors are also looking for solutions to your problems! They can't read your mind, man. They don't know what's wrong because they only know what they're being told by their citizens! so send them this video and say "Here's some solutions to the density issue from an expert - I ask that you please take this seriously, because I am. thank you." don't choose not to act because you MIGHT get a no. there is worst to come if you don't speak up for yourself at all. you don't deserve to be complacent homie,. hope this help.
I honestly would appreciate it if you could answer my previous question. I can see how trollish it appears, but it isn't meant that way. The whole system is just frustrating for us, who subscribe to the philosophy of urbanism. Just yesterday, I visited a booth, where the tunnel project was being presented, and it seems like everybody in the project believes that it is a good idea to have 4 lanes. It's frustrating, when our good ideas and suggestions get buried in statistics, whereas their ideas are commonly held, and accepted and defended by all the active players. Is my perspective correct in all of this?
I lived in an apartment complex in Austin, TX that was really similar to a Talus House style, it was really fun and effective. There were tons of interconnected external staircases, such that each pair of "condos" almost had their own multistory staircase - but they were all connected by big landings including a mixture of sliding glass doors, private patios, and pockets of roof access. It was absolutely a product of Austin in the 60s.
These designs could actually stifle the desire for single-family housing as well to some degree. I honestly wouldn't mind not having one if I could get a 3-bedroom apt in a building with these design elements. Why do we all need our own yards? How come communal spaces are looked down upon so much in North America?
Honestly, my biggest struggle with apartments as I lived in them for the vast majority of my adult life was I didn't own my living space and I was at the whim of my landlord for pricing and maintenance. I like my forested yards for a variety of reasons and I think just in general I wasn't made for urban life. I did it for over a decade and I never liked it as much as the 2 years I have in a house. The control, the space and the privacy are valuable to me.
@lost_porkchop Never said to get rid of single-family housing in its entirety. I don't know why people automatically go to extremes in their assumptions. We can have both, there can be a balance, and it doesn't have to be one over the other.
@lost_porkchop Okay? I didn't realize having different opinions on housing meant we need to laugh at each other. I always thought the default should be respect?
Re: single staircase apartments. In montreal it is quite common to have 1 staircase in the front (inside or outside the building) and one in the back. That way the apartments take up the entire length of the plot, similar to the first design in the video. The only « downside » is that the back staircase gives access to all the balconies, but in reality that is not ever really an issue.
In my country (Singapore)'s newer apartment buildings, there's a gap between adjacent units on the same floor, giving space for the kitchen windows to open into (& where the clothes drying yard is located at too), though it means that the stretch of common corridor where this gap is will be unprotected from the elements (not an issue in my country's tropical climate) unless you build more walls/windows to enclose that stretch of corridor. This lets you have larger units, with all bedroom & living room windows facing away from the corridor & only the kitchen & bathrooms' windows facing into the corridor, for privacy. Older buildings meanwhile have the kitchen & bathrooms (as well as their windows) facing outward instead, which some people prefer as the clothes drying area beside the kitchen window is now more exposed to sunlight, & laundry there can dry more easily, but the trade-off is that to make way for these bathrooms & kitchen, the living room & some bedrooms are now re-located & have their windows facing into the corridor instead, reducing privacy. Older buildings, unlike newer ones, often have units only on 1 side instead of both sides of the common corridor though, so the rooms with windows facing the corridor still get a view of the outside world. Annoyingly in many older buildings the corridors on most floors is not continuous along the building's whole length though, instead being divided into 2 or more sections (supposedly to discourage crime & increase privacy)
I really like that idea, it sounds kind of similar to how fire escapes are designed anyway. You still get the two staircases in cases of emergencies, but you still have flexibility in the floor plan not having the long hallway bisect the whole building
I’m a new dad, I moved to the Bay Area a few years ago and I’m thinking of purchasing a single family home, but with real estate prices currently through the roof, is it still a good idea to buy a home or should I invest in stocks for now and just wait for a housing market correction? I heard Nvidia and AMD are strong buys.
Certain Ai companies are rumoured to be overvalued and might cause a market correction, I’d suggest you go with a managed portfolio, but even those don’t perform so well, so it’s best you reach out to a proper fiduciary to guide you, that’s what works for my spouse and I.
There are a handful of experts in the field. I've experimented with a few over the past years, but I've stuck with ‘’ Sophia Maurine Lanting ” for about five years now, and her performance has been consistently impressive. She’s quite known in her field, look-her up.
im 2 minutes in and you already have my admiraton. i absolutely love people who are actively trying to make society a better place especially when its looks so promising and optimistic!
Staircase regulations should be based on distance from the staircase & population density. If an apartment is too far away from a staircase to reasonably reach it in an emergency, then another staircase should be made. Likewise, if a single staircase could become over-crowded by all residents using it in an emergency, a second one should be added to prevent crushes.
That's already how it works in the standard code in the US though not stated in the video. You still have to design exits per building occupany and path of travel, which will define how many exits you need. There are conditions which automatically call for a second exit, such has number of floors, which is what is stated. For the purpose of the video, the rules are stated as general principles but the life safety code is more complex than these stated principles.
@@Maimkillburn69 Only small buildings can have a single emergency exit. When we design a building like this, we also have to have windows large enough to provide an alternative exit if that exit would be compromised.
I work from home and at the moment that means that one of the three rooms in my apartment is my office. I would love to live in an apartment complex with a co-working space! Not having to sacrifice a quarter of my apartment's floor space for work and being able to interact with other people during my workday would be great.
I wish more places in the US had communal areas. Every single form of housing development seems allergic to the idea of sharing a space with neighbors.
family-oriented apartments amongst new/recent construction are sorely lacking in the cities where i've searched. Nice to see a shout-out for them here. The 2/2 with full baths, to me, supports 'co-equal' roommate situations. And single-staircase, that's a freedom needed for sure.
I just moved to Canada from Europe and Im quite shocked how hostile the architecture here is. It feels very isolating and extremely focused on single family houses with vast expanses of only suburbs between central commercial areas. This video really helped me understand why the buildings here feel like this!
The pooled circulation spaces is a really interesting idea. Some of the proposed uses (eg playground) were really edging into areas that I think local governments are better positioned to handle though. Like either the maintenance is increasing my rent (probably more than I'd pay in taxes because of economies of scale) or I'm stuck in an HOA. Also, communal spaces within an apartment complex absolutely require good soundproofing for the apartments for resident sanity
This is a pretty late reply, but there may be an interesting model where municipalities could offer property tax rebates to take over management of communal spaces in order to leverage the economies of scale they may have
I'd like to see more details of floorplans. The thing that bum me out about apartment living is that so many are so poorly laid out, at least for me. Different lifestyles and phases of life require different layouts.Could they maybe do stack townhomes? I'd love to have a two-story unit that actual has a proper living room and bedrooms upstairs. Also, not every bedroom needs its own bathroom. I'd rather have the usable living space anyway. And enough of the open common room! Let the kitchen be separate from the living room, for God's sake! Hell, I'd love to see more townhomes built as I think that's more what I'd like for myself. That being said, if I could find a spacious three bedroom that was well laid out, I think I could be happy.
"Maisonette" or Duplex apartments are a thing since before Le Corbusier. In my building here in Switzerland there are 27 apartments on 3 outdoor staircases, all in different sizes (studio up to 4 bedrooms), and at least 12 of them are 2-storey. Some of them have private back gardens as well. I also love this mix because it allows a good mix of occupants: singles, young couples, families, retirees.
You know, I love your videos. I've followed you since your vids with CBC and I just enjoy everything you put out. They're thoughtful and thought provoking, and they're well informed and well produced. Keep it up. You're good at this.
These shared spaces don't have to be owned or operated by the apartments either, they can simply be public land placed on the same plot of land. Imagine if instead of roads between apartment blocks we had bike lanes and parks and a few shops and the cars had to drive around and not through. What a lovely place that would be to live.
I'd rather not pay for a gym that I don't use. Rent the space to a commercial gym then residents who want it get a gym and those who don't save money. You wouldn't have a communal coffee shop, so why have a communal gym?
That creates two problems, who should pay for it, and who should use it. You can imagine local residents getting annoyed by what they might see as "their" amenities being used by too many other people.
Thank you for covering this project! Vancouver really needs more shared spaces as well as more housing units. The fact that people in apartment buildings can really only congregate in their individual suites is such a waste of opportunity to build and engage in community. I love the idea of omitting communal spaces from the square footage limits, and being able to start with one building and add more connected buildings later is a great idea.
If I lived in a single family neighborhood and apartment popped up between the houses I would be infuriated. Overcrowding neighborhoods that are meant for slower life. Blocking the sunlight to the lower height houses is insane
Interesting exercise in decoding rules and regulations. Some practical, some not. Some would require collaboration between developers of adjoining properties - which favors the first developer and compromises subsequent builders. Its long past due to remove or modify the way we count shared hallways, stairs and elevators in the allowable square footage. Its also worth looking about changing setbacks to encourage adjoining properties to have a larger common shared open area. Building design is ever changing - but can seem stagnant for long periods of time until new ideas take root. Not mentioned are the depopulation trends that will significantly alter the demand side - but favor more beautiful and livable housing solutions. I think the next major trend to emerge will be more enduringly beautiful designs.
THANK YOU. I was shocked that he just suggested with doing away with the two staircase rule without suggesting anything to make having a single staircase safer.
Absolutely NO! to reducing/eliminating parking spaces. I went through Portland, Oregon's growth spurt where apartment complexes were springing up everywhere. Without dedicated parking lots. Navigating the narrow streets was a problem before the neighborhood populations tripled. Now it's horrible! Our wise government said everyone would bike and use public transportation. What a joke! None of them even attended the community meetings via bus or bicycle! Eliminating dedicated parking requirements cannot happen without significant public transportation development.
I don’t believe the problem are the regulations, as an architect you should be able to work with them, if you ask me the main issue architects in Canada or USA have, for a more diversified approach at the design, is the excessive use of modulation in all the construction elements, the scope to creativity is reduced to nothing, I completely understand this situation happens because the developers must keep low cost process, at the end it’s the will of the investors if we have a richer aesthetic experience in our cities. (I really loved the video, congratulations for promoting the conversation in this subjects)
I appreciate the consideration for common space, but I am an apartment manager in Los Angeles, and there are other issues that you haven't considered. While having a common area where the community can interact with each other seems like a great idea, and practice, all it takes are one or two bad apples to ruin it for everyone. in my building, we have a tenant who has some habits which have several other tenants, causing us a lot of difficulty in maintaining community cohesion he stares at folks, takes pictures of them, etc. Our laws don't really address any of these things, and folks who are younger are more sensitive to this kind of thing as well. as a result, it creates a lot of distress, and requires legal action. Alternatively, if you live in a building that's not as responsive to tenant complaints, you can end up with a situation that I was told about a few months ago, where a woman was forced to keep her windows and blinds closed all the time, because one of her neighbors was "helping water the plants" and seemed to always be looking into her windowlate at night. Her landlord was not responsible, and because of the neighborhood she was in, it was very difficult to get any legal action done.
@@chrisblue4652 Ok, it took me a second to get where you were coming from, but I think i have it: you support urban living with community space I have a slightly different perspective It's my observation that urban living actually works to make life MORE anonymous. Sure, having your own house and yard with a fence can make it so you can enjoy a little nice time in greenery without your neighbors bugging you, but I do hear folks complaining about HOAs and neighborhood watch and all the rest It's worth noting that just because you have a community space doesn't mean you HAVE to use it, and while it should mean more accidental encounters, I believe that it is in the nature of cities to further anonymize people. The thing is, the only places where you really have folks keeping an eye on each other are small towns where you pretty much know everyone. I can probably keep track of about 500 people, maybe 1000 in my head. In a city, you have tens of thousands passing by each day. Pretty hard to keep track of. A community space can help with that, but it will take more than that to transform urban spaces into community neighborhoods. I believe it's the nature of living that close together that ironically pushes people apart.
@@chrisblue4652 Asian, especially Japanese culture, is very different. Being beholden to the community is already deeply ingrained, while the US is built on the idea of independence and "self-sufficiency".
My daughter moved into a new complex, lots of communal areas (big tv]/bar area and various jacuzzi tubs). So the body corporate ended up junking the lot because people abusewd the facilities and upkeep went through the roof
@@frankryan2505 I honestly wish it wasn't true, but as a manager, I discouraged those sorts of amenities; you need people to clean up after folks, some people do clean up and act right around others, but it only takes a coupe of people to ruin things for everyone (and make my job harder)
I backpacked through 17 countries in europe last year and although I am not an architect, I love architecture and creative designs. I have to say every apartment, every hostel/hotel, every house just felt better. I think it was because of circulation spaces. There was always shared community areas, whether in 200 person villages or 400,000 person cities
That's honestly so cool! I'd really love to live in an apartment space like the ones shown here! I'd really love for you to take a look at Stuytown in NYC. It's such an amazing living space with so many shared amenities and also lots of greenery so it's much more tolerable in the summer heat than in the rest of concrete plastered NYC.
Another great vid...but like you said, the biggest barrier is the profit maximization incentive that will prevent any of the innovations. Like someone else mentioned in this feed, if a non architect person were to bother their city councillor about building code changes, how would that person not be automatically dismissed since they do not have expertise? How does one show city councillors that this is broke and needs to be fixed? |I learn so much from your series and I encourage others to do the same.
This sounds great for people who want to be social and have more social situation. Me personally this sounds like a nightmare since I don't want to interact with others I want to good sound isolation so its like there's no one around me and I'm alone. However, I can't deny that these sound like a dream for the right person.
My town is being scraped and gouged to install brutalist cubes with weird, jarring color schemes, no parking, and private gyms. A local park has just been surrounded by double decker shipping containers while they tear it out to create a mega village. I'm sending this out.
Zoning for mixed use will definitely help medium densities housing like these to thrive, Tokyo is a great example of this. But apart from that, NIMBYs are a big hurdle to overcome, and in countries/cities where this is a problem, which government would be brave enough to step up and go against the grain (or how are they going to win the votes in the first place). Great video as always!
The last thing most people climbing stairs want is a maze of stairs, forcing you to climb and walk much further than necessary. This is especially true for those with injuries and old age.
None of these apartment ideas seemed to have much, if any consideration to the disabled, either. Not trying to knock these ideas as just being bad, but in hearing so much about stairs, I was left wondering about how disabled people could navigate the apartments. My current apartment, for example, was very clearly not designed for the disabled as even the ground floor units require going down two steps from the front parking lot to reach them. :/ But it is also a very old building that was built before such considerations ever entered the public conscious, but we shouldn't follow the same example for newer spaces.
From the picture it wasn't a maze, it was a network. There wasn't just one single path you needed to take to get somewhere, there were a great many options.
@@BewareTheLilyOfTheValley Most of these would have ground floor units, and you can add an elevator in the majority of them if they don't already have them. And the one with all the walkways wasn't a maze but a network. Everything was connected. If anything, those walkways would make going to and fro between the two wings of the building easier.
4 месяца назад+1
In Sweden I lived in a narrow house with 4 floors, the main door was located on a balcony like walkway connecting all apartments to one main stair (and elevator), but on both sides there was also spiral stairs so there was 3 stairs to each floor and none of them took up and living space, and the walkway nearest the door could be decorated and made personal. The bottom part of the house had higher ceiling level and made it good for stores and things like daycare centers, so there was a barbershop and a consulting office at ground level, and a bicycle room, in the basement we had storage, washing room and a utility-room for heating, TV/Telephone and Internet connections.
Extra "amenities" usually mean barebone courtyards with expensive upkeep, and lots of extra fighting at condo meetings. I'd rather have businesses or parking occupying those spaces.
Engineer here. While the idea of a single staircase sounds good, it has a major safety flaw and is why we don't allow it. If one staircase becomes inaccessible (for a multitude of reasons, like imagine if someone blocked the stairs because they had to bring a couch in that way) then the entire building loses the staircase. Multiple staircases are required for more reasons than "We have sprinklers, so it's not to protect us from fire." In California, some dorms have solved the single-staircase problem by connecting two separate buildings, which allows a separate path of egress. So there are alternative solutions... but to eliminate the second path of egress is the dumbest idea of I've heard of. High risk for low reward. And let's get something correct, we don't build multi-bedrooms apartments for a reason: Money. Think of it this way, a two bedroom in America goes for on average $1800, but a single bedroom goes for $1550 (this is the US as a whole, your specific area might be more or less). The reason we don't have 3 and 4 bedroom apartments is they make less money for the owner, are harder to rent especially when at those prices a person could rent a single family home, and they take more space. BTW this is also why circulation spaces are NOT decorated. They bring in no money for the owner, so they get no attention. Courtyard styles do exist (I saw a bunch in Seattle) and they are HORRIBLE. The hard surfaces in the center courtyard bounce sound off of them, so they tend to be loud and obnoxious. If they connect to an alley, then the sound of the trash guy bounces around every trash day. They also don't foster communities, but instead foster dead zones because there's nothing to do in them usually. And want to add an amenity like a pool? Sound comes back again. These spaces only work when you have large properties, and we're talking small properties. Also please remember community spaces means community upkeep, which means additional cost to owners. In the end it all comes back to one thing: Cost. If its not going to make money, then its not going to get built.
I want apartments like these to be built everywhere. We should do away with FAR, parking minimums, setback rules, height restrictions and staircase requirements entirely. If the demand for housing is there, let developers build what they want rather than be mired in red tape or forced to pander to self centred NIMBYs who stand in the way of progress. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and we should prioritise what’s best for the majority of people
Or maybe use creativity to create spaces for every taste. Many people need cars and disability-accessible buildings. The needs of the few are just as important as the needs of the many.
I love how you're all basically coming up with these wild, innovative solutions...which are exactly what I have in my 1880s apartment here in Scotland 😂Shared spaces and amenities, tight to the so the communal space out back is better, no parking, got 'em all. Check out neighbourhoods like Hyndland in Glasgow and Marchmont in Edinburgh. Although we don't have terrifying walkways in the air, that's a hard pass from me and my vertigo!
You can build apartments that aren't massive towers with just one staircase. Frankly, I'd prefer that buildings were limited to just 3 or 4 floors anyway, with businesses like grocery stores and gyms and banks and breweries and urban farms on the first (or 4th) floors.
What really needs to happen is building apartments over stores again. Affordable and convenient for employees and a good place to start, start over, or get back on your feet. Also a good option for the shopkeeper to have an affordable home near their business.
Shared spaces are awesome! My favorite place I've ever lived in had a central courtyard with tables, chairs, and grills that everyone would come together to have drinks and cook meals.
Another well done video Uytae! I would love to see many of these designs get built in Vancouver and in many other cities. One amenity idea: bicycle repair and workshop with a bicycle co-op non-profit!
The courtyard design is currently found in a few cities in BC but isn’t super popular as far as I can tell. I found a few builds in Victoria, Nanaimo and even Vancouver. I noticed they were all on older, larger, more block/square lots as opposed to the ones shown at first. The Nanaimo example is in the downtown core and was built in the last 5 years. The courtyard still respects the multi staircase requirement and you get some decent end to end units, but I don’t know a ton about it other than that. I can’t place Victoria’s examples atm but the last one I saw in Vancouver was I think an international village era redevelopment on Hastings, you can easily find it on MLS; it’s some of the cheapest housing you can buy. Anyway haha just some food for thought.
I recently stayed in an AirBnb with a central courtyard staircase, because I loved the design. But in practice.. I arrived at night and had to lug my stuff up all those flights of stairs. There was no illumination. It had rained, so there were puddles all over. And the “courtyard” was little more than a paved place for the bins. Pretty design in theory, reminded me of all the soap operas I watched with my grandma growing up, but not very nice or practical imo. Give me a nice, spacious elevator instead.
I think if you get rid of set backs you need to make sure there’s rules in place to protect access to sunlight for separate buildings, like stepping a building back after a certain height. But I love the idea of allowing shared courtyards/yards/balconies, and especially public walkways that let you cut through a block away from cars. And the single stair designs seem much more cozy.
@@MrIansmitchell It’s not air rights. I’m not talking about a neighboring property building in your airspace/directly over your yard, I’m talking about them building directly to the property line as high as they can and removing your access to sunlight. This is most definitely a zoning issue. Many cities have mandatory setbacks after a certain height to protect sunlight access to streets, and I’m saying if you’re going to bring the ability to build to the property line to neighborhoods, you also need to bring the sunlight protections-ideally flexible ones, so that if the neighboring property owners mutually agree, they can ignore them for the sake of a shared balcony or something of that nature.
Set backs are also for fire containment. Fire less easily hop from one building to another. It also eases traffic sounds. My city was stupid enough to grant waivers on parking requirements in condos/apartments and people just end up parking on the streets. Unless you have excellent transit and a bus stop in front of the building, forget it. It's just developers trying to maximize profit.
@@l.5832 maybe a compromise for the parking would be, if a developer is going to build without meeting the parking minimums, then they have to pay for traffic improvements to the surrounding area, or into a city transit fund that expands bus and bike routes. That way gradual improvements would make alternative modes of transit more appealing which could offset the reduced parking, and developers wouldn’t be pocketing all the extra money but it would instead be going to improving the neighborhood overall.
The parking issue is because of the way North America design towns and cities. By zoning you have to drive to your work, shop, play area instead of just popping round the corner. Higher density housing has to come with other major changes. Have a shop on the corner, play area in the complex, low traffic neighbourhoods, good public transportation... then you do not need a car.
I think this video will be really helpful for future architecture students to learn different and better ways to design collective housing. Great video!
Regarding the 2 staircases, in the context of Hong Kong where land is limited, we have been using "scissor staircase" in that way it won't take up as much space within the building !
Thank you for creating!! Nervous about the only one stair designs as fire exits are so important. Would want input on if one stair could work safely and for how many people, backed by research. Everything else sounded pretty good!!
If you more information on the fire safety aspect, look up the article "The Case for More Single Stair Buildings in the US" by Michael Eliason (it's on the website Treehugger), or the article "Why does American multifamily architecture look so banal? Here’s one reason" also by Michael Eliason (on the website Architect's Newspaper). They both discuss single-staircase apartments, and most notably point out that nearly every country in the world other than US and Canada allow these types of buildings, and there is no noticeable fire safety improvement that the US and Canada are getting. Fire safety is ultimately more about ensuring that fire can't start easily, and if it does start, that it can't spread, and you don't need two staircases to accomplish those goals.
If you want more information on the fire safety aspect, look up the article "The Case for More Single Stair Buildings in the US" by Michael Eliason (it's on the website Treehugger), or the article "Why does American multifamily architecture look so banal? Here’s one reason" also by Michael Eliason (on the website Architect's Newspaper). They both discuss single-staircase apartments, and most notably point out that nearly every country in the world other than US and Canada allow these types of buildings, and there is no noticeable fire safety improvement that the US and Canada are getting. Fire safety is ultimately more about ensuring that fire can't start easily, and if it does start, that it can't spread, and you don't need two staircases to accomplish those goals.
He didn't really help visualize how a 1 stair design could improve your quality of life in your unit. 2 stairs turns your apartment unit into a hotel room: 1. You have a long skinny dark depressing hallway that you have to walk through to get to your unit. No one likes to talk to each other in this hallway, everyone just tries to get to their unit as fast as possible. 2. Your unit can only face one side of the building, not the other side since the long hallways blocks off half the building from you. Now what does it mean to have 1 stair? Your unit can now be built to wrap around the stairs and be on BOTH sides of the building. You can have some rooms on the north side, and some rooms on the south side. This means you can throw open a window on both sides and have crossflow air flowing from north to south providing ventilation and cooling your apartment down. This means you have natural light coming into your apartment from both sides - which allows you to have light both in the morning and in the evening. It means that you have natural light throughout your unit instead of just coming in from one side and deeper rooms being in the dark. It means your apartment layout can have a more balanced layout, with a central living room and other rooms branching out from that center. You can look at apartment layouts in much of the world outside of North America to see how this looks like - see apartment tours in europe and asia. But my point is - when you don't understand the huge benefit it is to your apartment living experience having 1 staircase is - you fear the consequences of getting rid of the 2nd staircase. But if you were inside the 1 staircase unit touring it as a prospective tenant - you would immediately prefer it over the 2 staircase unit - you will subconsciously realize the 1 staricase unit is way better - even if you don't make the logical connection that it's because of the staircase.
I really, REALLY enjoyed this. This is something I can happily use to browbeat lots of people who complain about regulation and then refuse to remove these ones in the same breath.
It would be nice to have more high density options, but I don't think that will fix the issue with community. 30 years ago even suburbs had very strong communities. I feel that using architecture to fix social problems will only result in avoiding fixing the actual thing that may be causing this problem.
Grenfell Tower in London was a single staircase building. The decision that was made to upgrade the block was the wrong one, resulting in the deaths of dozens of the apartment residents in the 2017 fire.
The single staircase was a contributing factor to the deaths of Grenfell. There were other factors like the use of materials on the cladding that were not fire resistant, advising residents to stay put instead of evacuating, and there were no sprinklers.
Very cool concepts, and some of these are one's I'd be happy to live in. But I would think those regulations were put in for a reason. The fire thing makes sense, and maybe it would be fine if we revisited it, and used studies/data to make sure we'd be okay eliminating that rule. Not all rules were created equal, and there probably are ones that were set up for either aesthetic reasons or NIMBYs, so I like the idea of making sure all these rules make sense in the modern day.
@@James-vj5hz I don't know. It seems like one of those things where the risk, even if it seems unlikely, is just way too terrible to justify the reward. Our sprinkler system was out for some unknown period of time just because cold weather caused some sort of false fire alarms that burst the sprinklers in multiple buildings, including ours.
These "rules" are called building codes. Building codes are not created for aesthetics or because of NIMBY's. They are created for public safety - period. They are also constantly reviewed and updated.
In germany, almost all apartment buildings have a single staircase design. I don't think we're more likely to die in fires tbh. Of course there are more differences that factor in, but I don't think safety is a real/major reason against single staircase designs for most buildings (anymore). I would assume a lot of regulations are because of traditions "we always did it like this" and history "there was a reason that's not there anymore" (and lobbying). At least that's my view and experience with a lot of our building regulations. Edit: I forgot English words and corrected myself.
So many cool ideas! I sent your last video on single stair apartment buildings to my parents and everyone I know. I live in Calgary and I think changing that rule is possibly the single most effective thing we could do to build better, denser neighbourhoods. We have so many empty lots here beside cool old walk-up apartments. Too often they just get knocked down to make space for the standard oversized apartment blocks, rather than filled in one by one. It makes the streetscape really antiseptic. I also loved your point that it would be much less risky from a capital perspective to build these on smaller parcels. I love the idea of smaller scale builders being able to do this.
Ahh new About Here video! Go crazy!!! I was just watching the ADU video yesterday to study about for public comment at city council meeting about Chicago's ADU pilot program
Now I have something more concrete to annoy my city councillor. This is good actionable reforms in planning that we as a citizen can talk about.
I love how the urbanist RUclips sphere is moving away from just complaining to providing actionable steps now
@@Bioniking Yes! and its great to see it presented without the snark so many channels have that makes it hard to share with people who aren't already on board with urbanism.
I like your enthusiasm but I feel like councillors never respond
@@rajastylezPersistence and channeling my inner MLK helps.
These arent reforms, the reason we need 2 staircases is so people wont burn to death trying to flee a fire
4 bedroom apartments with good sound isolation from neighbours would be SICK
Those are pretty standard in Germany.
Stone houses, in a row with one staircase leading to two big flats on each side (60 - 80 m²). With balconies and large green spaces on each side, little parking too.
They are mostly 4-5 stories up, even higher if you implement elevators and they are in big cities.
That's how you achieve density even in smaller cities, but also people of different ages living together - seniors and families helping each other.
Not that they are really beautiful, though they can be.
@@theresabu3000can we afford it?
Don't you have that USA/Canada? Pretty normal in the rest of the world. I live in Sweden and there's 4,5,6 room apartments. Probably some that are even larger, but probably for the rich folks.
However, due to the fact that less people start family and they start it later smaller apartments are more commonplace in new developments. I mean ratio has skewed more to that.
@@pettahify no mid rises where I live in Canada like that…maybe some town homes have 4 bedrooms tho
@@rizkyadiyanto7922 with regulation by our government, yes. for some reason our govts are letting property owners charge blowing out your ass amounts of your earned cash without a national and federal level legislated regulation stating "all apartments are rent geared to income" - like, that's not a crime and also the law is made up and so is money and if politicians wanted you to stay housed, they would make sure the hours you put in to earn your money is spent affordably ON YOUR LIFE - not just on your shelter.
Oh how I long for a big, urban-oriented apartment...
north america unaffordable big city moment
Cheers from germany.
*cries in North America*
Big urban transit-oriented apartment amirite
All the points he mentioned are prevalent in all of singapores’s condo and HDB apartments… aren’t these like common sense…?
Hey, if you are reading this and think this is cool. You should get involved in your town to make this happen. It is surprisingly easy to get involved. Start by reaching out to your city council in writing, you can also attend meetings. You can also talk to your town planning and zoning commission. Don’t expect any be conversation to change the world though. Stick with it and push your city officials and staff to adopt newer better rules. This will take time, years. So strap in and find some friends. It’s a much better experience if you are fighting alongside friends. See if you can identify any allies on the council or planning commission or city staff. These people can be your ticket into bigger conversations. Remember, you gotta play it cool. If you go into these interactions guns blazing and pointing fingers then you aren’t going to get anywhere.
Your comment pushed me to finally stop procrastinating, and look up who my councilors are and how I can attend meetings. As it turns out, in my city you can sign up for an email list that'll tell you when meetings with the public are happening. I think to start off, I'll just attend and silently listen, since I'm super new to this. But hopefully with time, I'll learn how things work enough to be able to actually do some proper advocacy
Great to see this interaction!@@RobinRaye-np3vw
@@RobinRaye-np3vw A person did that, and then joined a comittee, and then became a councilor, and then probably became a mayor.
@@eugenetswongthen governor, then president.
@@rizkyadiyanto7922 Maybe, but I'm not talking about those guys.
Mixing commercial and residential is my greatest wish for housing in America. I want to live in a walkable city that doesnt require a car to buy groceries
For Europeans, it seems crazy NOT mixing commercial and residential areas.
Only exception would be heavy industry, but I think environmental laws cover that well enough
Come to Boston!
Well, to some extent. A small supermarket or cafe isn't too bad, but not so many people would want to live on top of a shopping mall!
ummmerreca
I think the opportunity for more livable and affordable multi bedroom apartments in the 3 - 4 bedroom range is massively overlooked when it comes to people in urban areas being able to have kids.
Childcare costing as much as an adult earns is a larger factor.
@@MrIansmitchell In the province of Québec, daycares are government subsidized and cost 10CAN$ per day.
Meanwhile there was a article in my country arguing why 2-bedroom apartments are sufficient. However that means if you have children of different gender & are uncomfortable with them sleeping in the same room, either the parents can't sleep in the same room, or someone is going to have to sleep in the living room
@@MrIansmitchell I think you misunderstood. There are indeed many factors that effect peoples decision to start a family and child care costs are definitely one. I was only pointing out that this issue of housing affordability and apartment sizes are also one of the many other factors that might keep people who would otherwise want to start a family from doing so.
Children don't need their own room
When i was in London UK , a group of apartment buildings (close to battersea Park) created a 'river' going through their shared space, with trees, benches, cofees, gym etc... Because it was in the middle of all the buildings, you couldn't hear to noise from the city, just the water and the birds. It was incredible.
I couldn't afford to live in those buildings, but the best part was that is was completely open for anyone to wander around, so i was spending most of my week ends, walking around the city, discovering hidden gems like this one, spending my money on nearby local shops, and public transportation.
Now I'm living in Vancouver, and even though London was so much bigger, it felt way more human size.
“And for architects, probably FML” okay, that made me chuckle 😆
Co-working spaces in apartments is such an amazing idea, especially now with so many people working from home and bigger apartments being so rare and expensive. Too many people are living sleeping and working in the same few feet. It’s really affecting a lot of people’s mental health.
everything good until a neighbor messes your working space. there won't be anyone to impose basic common rules like: be clean, don't make noise, and stuff.
@@cheesecake4648 Like some kind of co-worker roommate 😣. I work over the phone, I don't need a co-worker space because I need my area to be as quiet as possible. I just rent a two bedroom apartment, so one room is my bedroom and the other is my office. I'm in the process of making it a library and office, though, so hopefully it will look really nice once I'm done.
I used to want just a one bedroom apartment, but after the pandemic had me working in my bedroom, I changed on that. One bedroom apartments are very difficult to find in my area anyways, so two bedrooms gives me the space I actually want. I can shut the door on the office at the end of the day and leave work behind me, which I couldn't back during the pandemic (but I also roomed with someone back then. I now also know that my mental health is better with living alone. The quiet has been golden and I love that nothing gets messed up or dirty unless I'm the one that makes it dirty. I don't have to spend so much time cleaning because my sibling roommate rarely cleaned).
wtf is co-working It’s just gentrified office space
Go outside and take a walk
Interesting! when I saw that I thought it was a waste of space but I live near lots of libraries which makes me think that way.
Babe, wake up, About Here just dropped a new video!
😅
This was released at 4:00 pm, that's some shitty shift work if you're waking up then.
Worth waking up from a nap.
Has it really been 6 months? :O
Wow its City Beautiful!
9:00 The dog defecating by the "be respectful" sign is gold
Trolled by a dog. I love it. 🐶
I've never understood that. My dog will poop where he pleases and I will respectfully pick it up.
And I will respectfully respect the dogs!
dogs are ugly, annoying pets.
Yeah I kind of dislike signs like that. It makes places feel unwelcoming, but also ignores the fact that designers and city planners don't design any spaces that are for public utility.
Sure, have 65 foot wide roads that you can park a bus on, but no way are we going to buffer the sidewalk from the street with a grass strip. No way are we going to design sidewalks that aren't interrupted by driveway cuts. We'll never enforce rules about not parking across the sidewalk, you can just walk around them!
Kind of makes me want to enforce vigilante urbanism.
As someone who lives with 4-5 other roommates in a "single family" home, another thing that's beneficial about 3-4 unit apartments aside from supporting nuclear families with kids is the ability for folks to have more roommates which decreases rent/allows more affordability for everyone overall who's willing to live with other housemates.
At least where I live in LA, all the new multibedroom units are designed for situations like yours instead of families. Each bedroom has its own bathroom, and in turn, the apartments are extremely expensive. Only 4-5 mid to high salary earning professionals can live in them. The majority of people I know who have kids and still rents have to live in a one bedroom, move in with their parents, move well into the desert or leave the state.
but what if studios/one-bedrooms were just priced in a way that made more sense?
also realizing the govt subsidizes a lot of different industries to bring down the cost so the essentials are still affordable -
if they’re able to see the yearly income levels vs. rent/housing prices,
then isn’t it kinda weird they haven’t tried to intervene at all?
@@echo_eco_ethos I personally love living with like-minded people in a collective-like home environment. I found it ideal for me, my ethos, lifestyle, personality, and convenience of certain tasks like bulk buying essentials and shared household duties. I prefer it over living alone.
There are many complex reasons why the government doesn't currently intervene much in housing prices unfortunately, some examples are property tax rates paying for budgets, lobbyists, rates of home ownership being higher than rates of renters at least in Canada and thus voters not incentivised by lowered housing prices as it reduces their equity, many older homeowners are banking on their house's equity for retirement and things like the amount of second mortgages on houses also impact population debts and financial stability relative to housing prices.
The issue is that either the renter or the owner must in some way pay insurance and property taxes if they want a "permanent roof" with utilities like electricity, gas and water. Because of this, many people-at least in California, where I currently reside-are living in tents. No taxes, rent, mortgages, or insurance. The number of people who tell me they live in their car that I meet amazes me. Its crazy out here!
It’s getting wild by the day. The prices of homes are quite ridiculous and Mortgage prices has been skyrocketing on a roll(currently over 7%). Sometimes i wonder if to just invest my spare cash into the stock market and wait for a housing crash or just go ahead to buy a home anyways.
@@BernardFrederick-tk7un Please pardon me, who guides you on the process of it all?
@@BernardFrederick-tk7un Thank you for this tip. It was easy to find your coach. Did my due diligence on her before scheduling a phone call with her. She seems proficient considering her résumé.
I dont think housing costs are this high due to taxes or insurance, I think it's greedy property firms gobbling up all housing. We can make cheap housing happen if the government regulated rent prices and build housing themselves
@@eagleleftThere already has been a scandal of landlords across the US using this one software that uses ai to tell them how to price rent. Greed is running rampage in so many countries as it is. I sadly don't see state and national governments doing much besides just talk about fixing the housing situation
Ok, so I am one of the ~evil gatekeeper urban planners~ tasked with reviewing developers' applications, and enforcing some of the rules mentioned in the video. FWIW, my favourite home in Vancouver was a 10-storey concrete apartment, corner unit, with a lovely modest front yard with a huge tree, and a side-yard window that looked almost directly into my neighbour's shower!
Definitely agree there should be a re-examination of setbacks. Most North American zoning codes (and the setbacks) were developed in an era of either big apartment buildings on big lot assemblies (e.g. the "tower in the park" model) or the single-detached house on relatively big suburban lots. In both those cases, front and rear setbacks were seen as desirable not only for green space, so-called room to breathe, but also to allow for some privacy with your neighbours. This competition envisioned a very different scenario: much denser small-lot apartment development, which will require a lot more space than the standard 50-60% single-family house footprint. Of course this will run up against traditional community expectations around green streetscapes and privacy, as well as real environmental questions about stormwater management, tree canopy, etc.
When it comes to shared common spaces, I am with ya in principle, although in practice there would be hurdles to overcome. Already in many cities there are design and siting guidelines that say you should try to arrange apartments in a "checkerboard" pattern as shown in some of the submissions. But it's really difficult to force those private open spaces to be used in common, or by adjacent residents. Normally each strata or building owner wants to keep their amenity spaces private, for liability and safety/security reasons, and also so maintenance costs can be properly controlled. If that private space is opened up to other users, legal agreements are needed to spell out who's responsible, who's liable, and to protect access for everyone.
Finally, the elephant in the room is cost. The reason there aren't more 3-bedroom units in the apartment market right now is because developers sell housing on a per-square foot basis, more or less, so big units are prohibitively expensive for buyers, and small units are relatively more marketable for investors. Similarly, there are certain building-size thresholds that dictate financial viability - so if your building is too tall then you need (i.e. the market wants) a second elevator which is very expensive, and same if you need underground parking. At the moment, Building Code requires apartments higher than 6 storeys to be constructed in concrete or mass timber, both of which are much, much more expensive than wood frame. And to bear all that cost, developers - and their equity partners - need to sell a certain number of units at a certain price, otherwise the project doesn't happen.
So basically, absolutely yes we should be looking at both zoning and building code regulations to help remove barriers where possible, and also help educate and shift NIMBY mindsets among the community. But that's not instantly going to fix the problem, which (in my view) stems from decades of underdevelopment and rapidly inflated land values. Civil servants do want to hear pro-density feedback though - generally speaking, we're not obstructionists protecting some archaic status-quo, only trying to balance a bunch of different values and considerations as we carry out the directives of our elected decision -makers.
Thank for this perspective. Are there currently apt buildings taller than 5 stories and only one stairwell? Are they safe enough (however we measure that)?
@@geeksdo1tbetter Unfortunately architecture isn't my area of expertise so I can't offer specific examples. I do know there are lots of single-stair apartments built to contemporary (fire safe) standards in other countries around the world, which use things like sprinklering and enhanced fire-walls to boost safety. Your favourite search engine can probably lead you to some much better resources about the safety measures used for buildings of different heights and uses.
@@kayelltom Here in switzerland, multi unit homes, are basically all concrete. Then you have self closing doors, which can withstand 900°C for (new) 90 minutes (those are actually wood). Two of those to separate a underground parking from the building. Funny enough, you need neither firealarms nor sprinklers for up to 5 stories (having some maintained, fire extinguishers in the stairwell, will get you % with the insurance). above that you need special precautions, like a linked fire alarm system etc. But you almost always only need 1 stairwell for apartments. different rules for schools, business etc., they often need multiple fire escapes.
As for stormwater management: Flat roof properly greened can soak at least 1 gallon of rainwater per sqft (50l / m^3), before any runoff starts. (Can still be combined with solar panels, but then you have added maintenance). Much better than a traditional roof, where all water immediately becomes runoff.
Due to stringent regulation about retention on property, almost anything built these days uses flat roofs and somewhere in the green area, a retention area, where the rainwater from other impermeable surfaces is guided to.
What we do have often here: A Development (something like 5-30 stairwells with each 6-10 1-3 bedroom apartments), with different owners but a association, responsible for the common areas (greeneries, parking,...). This way, you can share and the association rules, define all the aspects of liability, maintenance etc. Unlike in the US, most of the market is owned by the investors and rented out. we have a very different renters market (very strict laws, concerning changing rent, kicking people out, etc.). Mostly assets are hold by investors to maintain their "solid assets requirements", rather than to make much profit. Land value would give any American nightmares..., one of the reasons, almost all new buildings are at least medium density.
Density doesn't equal affordability. The problem is that a lot of people want to live in the same place. That is why NYC is very un- affordable even though it is very dense. The phenomenon is called induced demand where an increase in the supply of a good or service leads to an increase in its consumption. That is especially true now when mega corporations like Blackrock are buying homes left and right.
Cost to build a house is more or less the same across the country. The variables are cost of the land and cost of regulations.
If you want affordable housing you need Sprawl. Build more roads, more mass transit. Aim to get gas and cars cheaper. Prohibit mega corporations like Blackrock from scooping all the homes. Invest in neglected neighborhoods and Towns.
People follow work. If good jobs are found not only in major cities people will have more incentive to live in small towns (cheaper land cost). Also, property taxes should be looked at so investment in the area does not push people that already live there out.
"small appartment for investors" is increasingly not viable, as many cities are pumping a lot of supply into these types. (notably, Toronto)
Thats leaving the rental condo market in shambles, and no one wants to buy them as homeowners.
If we intend to plan for the next decade, the shift towards larger units needs to be done yesterday.
And remember everyone, Chesterton’s Fence! If you don’t see a reason for a rule, trying to understand why it’s there before doing away with it. This video did a solid job with the staircase rule. It outline it was made for fire safety in a time when fires were more common. Getting even more alternative fire safety implements in place will help assuage the concerns of those who may be reluctant to do away with the extra stairs.
I highly doubt that insurance companies and zoning engineers in the US are really going to be willing to risk their licenses on removing requirements for a staircase. The idea of excluding stairs and some/all halls from FAR/FSI limits is superior to removing a matter of life and death.
Chesterton’s Fence - I always forget that name, but it is a great concept and violated by people all the time.
@boomer just because you remove the stairs/halls from FML, doesn't mean they're cheap in terms of construction cost and land use.
@@szurketaltos2693 Kinda depends on where the zoning is. In a HCOL area, the zoning is more expensive than the construction and maintenance. When a developer can sell a condo for $1M, and they are given a specific FAR, they want to maximize the number of units and size of units. If the halls and stairs are not part of that calculation, then they can build more homes without concern for the ratio costing them big profits. In my area, buildings of all kinds are subject to the ratio and look into every square foot. I know one case where they were looking needing to move a wall a couple inches to make the stairs wide enough and that messed up their ratio calculations and forced a somewhat big design change in order to make up a couple inches along a long wall which turned out to be like 1,000 square feet since it was a long wall and multiple floors. They had to chop off something else to remove that 1,000 square feet. If stairs weren't part of it, it would be easier.
In another situation, there is often a little space under part of the stairs on the bottom floor. A nice spot for a closet. But, in one case there were granted a limited exclusion of the stairs. But, if they enclosed that to be a closet (a networking closet), then those 9 square feet would be part of the space and mess up their ratio, and only be 1/2 high, so they lost "3-D" space so they would not enclose it.
Ratios really get interesting (to me).
@@michaelpeele5739 good examples, but kind of orthogonal to what I said I think. I'm simply pointing out that stairs and hallways have a real cost to construct, not only monetary but also in constraining the rest of the floor plan (as in the video). This is similar to how parking costs money and constrains the plan (driveway, edge of property/street considerations, access to living space, etc) even if not included in the ratio.
My very first apartment was in an old 1940s built building. It occupied a single lot, and had 5 suites (2 upper floor, 2 main floor, 1 basement). I loved that space, despite it not being in great repair. Every apartment had windows on 3 sides, and a small communal yard. It was walking distance to everything. It more or less sat on the property line on 2 sides (it was a corner lot, so those sides abutted up to the city property).
My next apartment, in the same neighbourhood, was a garden apartment with external walk-ups and balconies. It has windows on both ends. Still very lovely, but I missed the old 1940s one.
I never rent in new buildings. For one, the walls are flimsy.
Did everyone that was ever a tenant since that 1940s one was built, have a car?
The only successful design is the one that gets built - at scale! The rules cited in this video are all upheld by people who prioritize their own aesthetic preferences over the desperate need for housing. We need to persuade them. That is the only way! If you're reading this, go talk to your council and city planning staff right now!
I don't understand why we should bother with city council, when they could just say no. Do you know much about Surrey BC?
Where is this desperate need for housing? Almost all of the “homelessness” in my city is fentanyl addicts who refuse available housing because there’s one rule they can’t follow. Meanwhile we have empty buildings, and developers who claim we need to keep building and eventually the prices will drop. They haven’t. If we banned airbnb we could maybe get some more of the housing back. But these same people who claim we need to keep building also refuse to ban airbnb. None of it makes sense.
@@eugenetswong that's the point lmao. Just because someone CAN say no doesn't mean that they will. Not saying anything is worse than saying "I hate this, change it" and being rejected. But you're assuming no one is going to listen to you and what you say because... why? search your soul about that, why do you think you won't be heard?
Sure you might get told no, but that's what happens sometimes. but not always! plus, they're not cutting off your arm for saying you're pissed and you're not in any actual pain. if you care enough about something, you can send an email saying "I care about this, here's why", even if a "no" might loom
You're giving up before you've even started and that's pussy shit. that's what people profitting off your suffering want! (that's landlords in this case). DO NOT GIVE UP.
city councilors are also looking for solutions to your problems! They can't read your mind, man. They don't know what's wrong because they only know what they're being told by their citizens! so send them this video and say "Here's some solutions to the density issue from an expert - I ask that you please take this seriously, because I am. thank you."
don't choose not to act because you MIGHT get a no. there is worst to come if you don't speak up for yourself at all. you don't deserve to be complacent homie,. hope this help.
Some of the rules exist for fire safety reasons, like the two staircase rule.
I honestly would appreciate it if you could answer my previous question. I can see how trollish it appears, but it isn't meant that way. The whole system is just frustrating for us, who subscribe to the philosophy of urbanism.
Just yesterday, I visited a booth, where the tunnel project was being presented, and it seems like everybody in the project believes that it is a good idea to have 4 lanes. It's frustrating, when our good ideas and suggestions get buried in statistics, whereas their ideas are commonly held, and accepted and defended by all the active players.
Is my perspective correct in all of this?
I lived in an apartment complex in Austin, TX that was really similar to a Talus House style, it was really fun and effective. There were tons of interconnected external staircases, such that each pair of "condos" almost had their own multistory staircase - but they were all connected by big landings including a mixture of sliding glass doors, private patios, and pockets of roof access. It was absolutely a product of Austin in the 60s.
I live in austin! Can you share where this is? I'd love to have a look
These designs could actually stifle the desire for single-family housing as well to some degree. I honestly wouldn't mind not having one if I could get a 3-bedroom apt in a building with these design elements. Why do we all need our own yards? How come communal spaces are looked down upon so much in North America?
Honestly, my biggest struggle with apartments as I lived in them for the vast majority of my adult life was I didn't own my living space and I was at the whim of my landlord for pricing and maintenance. I like my forested yards for a variety of reasons and I think just in general I wasn't made for urban life. I did it for over a decade and I never liked it as much as the 2 years I have in a house. The control, the space and the privacy are valuable to me.
I like having a house and a yard so that I'm away from people and so that I have work in my free time. I'm just one person though.
It's also nice to be able to laugh at millennials...hahahaha....
@lost_porkchop Never said to get rid of single-family housing in its entirety. I don't know why people automatically go to extremes in their assumptions. We can have both, there can be a balance, and it doesn't have to be one over the other.
@lost_porkchop Okay? I didn't realize having different opinions on housing meant we need to laugh at each other. I always thought the default should be respect?
Re: single staircase apartments. In montreal it is quite common to have 1 staircase in the front (inside or outside the building) and one in the back. That way the apartments take up the entire length of the plot, similar to the first design in the video. The only « downside » is that the back staircase gives access to all the balconies, but in reality that is not ever really an issue.
In my country (Singapore)'s newer apartment buildings, there's a gap between adjacent units on the same floor, giving space for the kitchen windows to open into (& where the clothes drying yard is located at too), though it means that the stretch of common corridor where this gap is will be unprotected from the elements (not an issue in my country's tropical climate) unless you build more walls/windows to enclose that stretch of corridor. This lets you have larger units, with all bedroom & living room windows facing away from the corridor & only the kitchen & bathrooms' windows facing into the corridor, for privacy. Older buildings meanwhile have the kitchen & bathrooms (as well as their windows) facing outward instead, which some people prefer as the clothes drying area beside the kitchen window is now more exposed to sunlight, & laundry there can dry more easily, but the trade-off is that to make way for these bathrooms & kitchen, the living room & some bedrooms are now re-located & have their windows facing into the corridor instead, reducing privacy. Older buildings, unlike newer ones, often have units only on 1 side instead of both sides of the common corridor though, so the rooms with windows facing the corridor still get a view of the outside world. Annoyingly in many older buildings the corridors on most floors is not continuous along the building's whole length though, instead being divided into 2 or more sections (supposedly to discourage crime & increase privacy)
I really like that idea, it sounds kind of similar to how fire escapes are designed anyway. You still get the two staircases in cases of emergencies, but you still have flexibility in the floor plan not having the long hallway bisect the whole building
I’m a new dad, I moved to the Bay Area a few years ago and I’m thinking of purchasing a single family home, but with real estate prices currently through the roof, is it still a good idea to buy a home or should I invest in stocks for now and just wait for a housing market correction? I heard Nvidia and AMD are strong buys.
it’s a personal decision, but according to Forbes, housing activities will remain stagnant for the most part of the year, so maybe hold off a little.
well you could put a downpayment on a home and as well diversify as much as you can into Ai and pharm. stocks like Pfizer and JnJ.
Certain Ai companies are rumoured to be overvalued and might cause a market correction, I’d suggest you go with a managed portfolio, but even those don’t perform so well, so it’s best you reach out to a proper fiduciary to guide you, that’s what works for my spouse and I.
this is all new to me, where do I find a fiduciary, can you recommend any?
There are a handful of experts in the field. I've experimented with a few over the past years, but I've stuck with ‘’ Sophia Maurine Lanting ” for about five years now, and her performance has been consistently impressive. She’s quite known in her field, look-her up.
7:27 this one actually gave me so much hope. Just imagining what growing up/living in one of these is breathtaking
Yes! Another Uytae creation!
Shut up cringeball
First in 6 months since his point access blocks video. Is this a canadian youtuber thing or what
@@LouisChang-le7xoHe's not a full time RUclipsr, he does other stuff too. Though I'm very surprised seeing so many videos above a million views.
im 2 minutes in and you already have my admiraton. i absolutely love people who are actively trying to make society a better place especially when its looks so promising and optimistic!
Decoding density was a fascinating project and I hope our leaders are being informed of it.
Staircase regulations should be based on distance from the staircase & population density. If an apartment is too far away from a staircase to reasonably reach it in an emergency, then another staircase should be made. Likewise, if a single staircase could become over-crowded by all residents using it in an emergency, a second one should be added to prevent crushes.
That's already how it works in the standard code in the US though not stated in the video. You still have to design exits per building occupany and path of travel, which will define how many exits you need. There are conditions which automatically call for a second exit, such has number of floors, which is what is stated. For the purpose of the video, the rules are stated as general principles but the life safety code is more complex than these stated principles.
What if the staircase is where the fire/emergency is at seems like a severe disadvantage
@@Maimkillburn69 Only small buildings can have a single emergency exit. When we design a building like this, we also have to have windows large enough to provide an alternative exit if that exit would be compromised.
@@ThiercelinBen Ah yes, so we're just going to be here casually advising people to jump out of a ten story building?
@@Xephisto You are jumping to conclusions. It is only for small buildings with a maximum of 3 stories, where a fire truck's ladder can reach.
I work from home and at the moment that means that one of the three rooms in my apartment is my office. I would love to live in an apartment complex with a co-working space! Not having to sacrifice a quarter of my apartment's floor space for work and being able to interact with other people during my workday would be great.
Uytae, you're making the best urbanism videos on the planet. Thanks.
Another About Here Banger
I wish more places in the US had communal areas. Every single form of housing development seems allergic to the idea of sharing a space with neighbors.
What are you a communist!?
The american way is rugged individualism except if your poor or brown
No one wants to share space with neighbors. I have never met my neighbors in the past places I've lived and frankly I want to keep it that way.
THIS!!!! we need more real and tangible content like this to exist!! Thank you Uytae!!
family-oriented apartments amongst new/recent construction are sorely lacking in the cities where i've searched. Nice to see a shout-out for them here. The 2/2 with full baths, to me, supports 'co-equal' roommate situations. And single-staircase, that's a freedom needed for sure.
I just moved to Canada from Europe and Im quite shocked how hostile the architecture here is. It feels very isolating and extremely focused on single family houses with vast expanses of only suburbs between central commercial areas. This video really helped me understand why the buildings here feel like this!
The pooled circulation spaces is a really interesting idea. Some of the proposed uses (eg playground) were really edging into areas that I think local governments are better positioned to handle though. Like either the maintenance is increasing my rent (probably more than I'd pay in taxes because of economies of scale) or I'm stuck in an HOA. Also, communal spaces within an apartment complex absolutely require good soundproofing for the apartments for resident sanity
I wouldn't live in an apartment that doesn't have a (solid) HOA. Too many things can go wrong.
This is a pretty late reply, but there may be an interesting model where municipalities could offer property tax rebates to take over management of communal spaces in order to leverage the economies of scale they may have
I'd like to see more details of floorplans. The thing that bum me out about apartment living is that so many are so poorly laid out, at least for me. Different lifestyles and phases of life require different layouts.Could they maybe do stack townhomes? I'd love to have a two-story unit that actual has a proper living room and bedrooms upstairs. Also, not every bedroom needs its own bathroom. I'd rather have the usable living space anyway. And enough of the open common room! Let the kitchen be separate from the living room, for God's sake! Hell, I'd love to see more townhomes built as I think that's more what I'd like for myself. That being said, if I could find a spacious three bedroom that was well laid out, I think I could be happy.
"Maisonette" or Duplex apartments are a thing since before Le Corbusier. In my building here in Switzerland there are 27 apartments on 3 outdoor staircases, all in different sizes (studio up to 4 bedrooms), and at least 12 of them are 2-storey. Some of them have private back gardens as well. I also love this mix because it allows a good mix of occupants: singles, young couples, families, retirees.
I can’t shake the feeling I’m in a hotel and not a home when I’m in a two staircase apartment building. I hate them so much.
Same.
You know, I love your videos. I've followed you since your vids with CBC and I just enjoy everything you put out. They're thoughtful and thought provoking, and they're well informed and well produced. Keep it up. You're good at this.
These shared spaces don't have to be owned or operated by the apartments either, they can simply be public land placed on the same plot of land. Imagine if instead of roads between apartment blocks we had bike lanes and parks and a few shops and the cars had to drive around and not through. What a lovely place that would be to live.
Yeah. I'd rather not have private playgrounds, parks, and gyms attached to apartment buildings. Public spaces!
I'd rather not pay for a gym that I don't use. Rent the space to a commercial gym then residents who want it get a gym and those who don't save money.
You wouldn't have a communal coffee shop, so why have a communal gym?
Higher maintenance costs
@@FekDindad-xy9vz
If the gym was practically free however...
That creates two problems, who should pay for it, and who should use it. You can imagine local residents getting annoyed by what they might see as "their" amenities being used by too many other people.
These designs look beautiful!! I would love to see more apartments like this here in Vancouver!
Thank you for covering this project! Vancouver really needs more shared spaces as well as more housing units. The fact that people in apartment buildings can really only congregate in their individual suites is such a waste of opportunity to build and engage in community. I love the idea of omitting communal spaces from the square footage limits, and being able to start with one building and add more connected buildings later is a great idea.
If I lived in a single family neighborhood and apartment popped up between the houses I would be infuriated. Overcrowding neighborhoods that are meant for slower life. Blocking the sunlight to the lower height houses is insane
Interesting exercise in decoding rules and regulations. Some practical, some not. Some would require collaboration between developers of adjoining properties - which favors the first developer and compromises subsequent builders. Its long past due to remove or modify the way we count shared hallways, stairs and elevators in the allowable square footage. Its also worth looking about changing setbacks to encourage adjoining properties to have a larger common shared open area. Building design is ever changing - but can seem stagnant for long periods of time until new ideas take root. Not mentioned are the depopulation trends that will significantly alter the demand side - but favor more beautiful and livable housing solutions. I think the next major trend to emerge will be more enduringly beautiful designs.
Fantastic as always! Some really inspiring and exciting designs in here.
Single staircase could be alright, if also paired with external fire escapes. Multiple exits on tall buildings are important for a reason.
THANK YOU. I was shocked that he just suggested with doing away with the two staircase rule without suggesting anything to make having a single staircase safer.
Absolutely NO! to reducing/eliminating parking spaces. I went through Portland, Oregon's growth spurt where apartment complexes were springing up everywhere. Without dedicated parking lots. Navigating the narrow streets was a problem before the neighborhood populations tripled. Now it's horrible! Our wise government said everyone would bike and use public transportation. What a joke! None of them even attended the community meetings via bus or bicycle! Eliminating dedicated parking requirements cannot happen without significant public transportation development.
LOVED this video. Thank you so much for sharing this knowledge with us ❤️ 👏
I don’t believe the problem are the regulations, as an architect you should be able to work with them, if you ask me the main issue architects in Canada or USA have, for a more diversified approach at the design, is the excessive use of modulation in all the construction elements, the scope to creativity is reduced to nothing, I completely understand this situation happens because the developers must keep low cost process, at the end it’s the will of the investors if we have a richer aesthetic experience in our cities. (I really loved the video, congratulations for promoting the conversation in this subjects)
This is so cool!! When you let people do what they are good at you get this!
we need this in vancouver
Agree
we need (more of) this in seattle
And Toronto. Everywhere, really. Modern condos are unlivable.
We just got this passed
Can’t get enough of this study of the designs ~~~ 😭 I would honestly love if this was a 10 part series, I’m not at all joking.
Great coverage!! Thanks for bringing more light to these inspiring ideas!
I love these ideas. Housing is a massive issue and so many things need to change to make us a better city, country, and society.
I appreciate the consideration for common space, but I am an apartment manager in Los Angeles, and there are other issues that you haven't considered.
While having a common area where the community can interact with each other seems like a great idea, and practice, all it takes are one or two bad apples to ruin it for everyone. in my building, we have a tenant who has some habits which have several other tenants, causing us a lot of difficulty in maintaining community cohesion he stares at folks, takes pictures of them, etc. Our laws don't really address any of these things, and folks who are younger are more sensitive to this kind of thing as well. as a result, it creates a lot of distress, and requires legal action.
Alternatively, if you live in a building that's not as responsive to tenant complaints, you can end up with a situation that I was told about a few months ago, where a woman was forced to keep her windows and blinds closed all the time, because one of her neighbors was "helping water the plants" and seemed to always be looking into her windowlate at night. Her landlord was not responsible, and because of the neighborhood she was in, it was very difficult to get any legal action done.
@@chrisblue4652 Ok, it took me a second to get where you were coming from, but I think i have it: you support urban living with community space
I have a slightly different perspective
It's my observation that urban living actually works to make life MORE anonymous. Sure, having your own house and yard with a fence can make it so you can enjoy a little nice time in greenery without your neighbors bugging you, but I do hear folks complaining about HOAs and neighborhood watch and all the rest
It's worth noting that just because you have a community space doesn't mean you HAVE to use it, and while it should mean more accidental encounters, I believe that it is in the nature of cities to further anonymize people.
The thing is, the only places where you really have folks keeping an eye on each other are small towns where you pretty much know everyone. I can probably keep track of about 500 people, maybe 1000 in my head. In a city, you have tens of thousands passing by each day. Pretty hard to keep track of.
A community space can help with that, but it will take more than that to transform urban spaces into community neighborhoods. I believe it's the nature of living that close together that ironically pushes people apart.
@@chrisblue4652 Asian, especially Japanese culture, is very different. Being beholden to the community is already deeply ingrained, while the US is built on the idea of independence and "self-sufficiency".
My daughter moved into a new complex, lots of communal areas (big tv]/bar area and various jacuzzi tubs).
So the body corporate ended up junking the lot because people abusewd the facilities and upkeep went through the roof
@@frankryan2505 I honestly wish it wasn't true, but as a manager, I discouraged those sorts of amenities; you need people to clean up after folks, some people do clean up and act right around others, but it only takes a coupe of people to ruin things for everyone (and make my job harder)
An apartment manger in LA, and your first concern over common space isn't the homeless? That's suspicious.
Excellent food for thought. Nice job presenting some of the ways changing regulations could open up creative design.
This is the content we need more of ❤
I loved this. Toronto needs this yesterday.
These designs with better visibility could also help "Gossip Lady" keep tabs on what is going on in the building and intervene more effectively.
I backpacked through 17 countries in europe last year and although I am not an architect, I love architecture and creative designs. I have to say every apartment, every hostel/hotel, every house just felt better. I think it was because of circulation spaces. There was always shared community areas, whether in 200 person villages or 400,000 person cities
Yeah it’s wild to see that Americans don’t realize these concepts are already reality in Europe for years
That's honestly so cool! I'd really love to live in an apartment space like the ones shown here!
I'd really love for you to take a look at Stuytown in NYC. It's such an amazing living space with so many shared amenities and also lots of greenery so it's much more tolerable in the summer heat than in the rest of concrete plastered NYC.
Love the premise for this idea and the international call. Inspiring! All of it!
Another great vid...but like you said, the biggest barrier is the profit maximization incentive that will prevent any of the innovations.
Like someone else mentioned in this feed, if a non architect person were to bother their city councillor about building code changes, how would that person not be automatically dismissed since they do not have expertise? How does one show city councillors that this is broke and needs to be fixed?
|I learn so much from your series and I encourage others to do the same.
This sounds great for people who want to be social and have more social situation. Me personally this sounds like a nightmare since I don't want to interact with others I want to good sound isolation so its like there's no one around me and I'm alone.
However, I can't deny that these sound like a dream for the right person.
My town is being scraped and gouged to install brutalist cubes with weird, jarring color schemes, no parking, and private gyms. A local park has just been surrounded by double decker shipping containers while they tear it out to create a mega village. I'm sending this out.
We need to build beautiful again.
Zoning for mixed use will definitely help medium densities housing like these to thrive, Tokyo is a great example of this. But apart from that, NIMBYs are a big hurdle to overcome, and in countries/cities where this is a problem, which government would be brave enough to step up and go against the grain (or how are they going to win the votes in the first place). Great video as always!
The last thing most people climbing stairs want is a maze of stairs, forcing you to climb and walk much further than necessary. This is especially true for those with injuries and old age.
None of these apartment ideas seemed to have much, if any consideration to the disabled, either. Not trying to knock these ideas as just being bad, but in hearing so much about stairs, I was left wondering about how disabled people could navigate the apartments. My current apartment, for example, was very clearly not designed for the disabled as even the ground floor units require going down two steps from the front parking lot to reach them. :/ But it is also a very old building that was built before such considerations ever entered the public conscious, but we shouldn't follow the same example for newer spaces.
that was the only one that seemed like a nightmare tbh. I saw that and immediately went “People would hate that!” 😂
From the picture it wasn't a maze, it was a network. There wasn't just one single path you needed to take to get somewhere, there were a great many options.
@@BewareTheLilyOfTheValley Most of these would have ground floor units, and you can add an elevator in the majority of them if they don't already have them. And the one with all the walkways wasn't a maze but a network. Everything was connected. If anything, those walkways would make going to and fro between the two wings of the building easier.
In Sweden I lived in a narrow house with 4 floors, the main door was located on a balcony like walkway connecting all apartments to one main stair (and elevator), but on both sides there was also spiral stairs so there was 3 stairs to each floor and none of them took up and living space, and the walkway nearest the door could be decorated and made personal. The bottom part of the house had higher ceiling level and made it good for stores and things like daycare centers, so there was a barbershop and a consulting office at ground level, and a bicycle room, in the basement we had storage, washing room and a utility-room for heating, TV/Telephone and Internet connections.
Extra "amenities" usually mean barebone courtyards with expensive upkeep, and lots of extra fighting at condo meetings. I'd rather have businesses or parking occupying those spaces.
Engineer here. While the idea of a single staircase sounds good, it has a major safety flaw and is why we don't allow it. If one staircase becomes inaccessible (for a multitude of reasons, like imagine if someone blocked the stairs because they had to bring a couch in that way) then the entire building loses the staircase. Multiple staircases are required for more reasons than "We have sprinklers, so it's not to protect us from fire."
In California, some dorms have solved the single-staircase problem by connecting two separate buildings, which allows a separate path of egress. So there are alternative solutions... but to eliminate the second path of egress is the dumbest idea of I've heard of. High risk for low reward.
And let's get something correct, we don't build multi-bedrooms apartments for a reason: Money. Think of it this way, a two bedroom in America goes for on average $1800, but a single bedroom goes for $1550 (this is the US as a whole, your specific area might be more or less). The reason we don't have 3 and 4 bedroom apartments is they make less money for the owner, are harder to rent especially when at those prices a person could rent a single family home, and they take more space.
BTW this is also why circulation spaces are NOT decorated. They bring in no money for the owner, so they get no attention. Courtyard styles do exist (I saw a bunch in Seattle) and they are HORRIBLE. The hard surfaces in the center courtyard bounce sound off of them, so they tend to be loud and obnoxious. If they connect to an alley, then the sound of the trash guy bounces around every trash day. They also don't foster communities, but instead foster dead zones because there's nothing to do in them usually. And want to add an amenity like a pool? Sound comes back again. These spaces only work when you have large properties, and we're talking small properties. Also please remember community spaces means community upkeep, which means additional cost to owners.
In the end it all comes back to one thing: Cost. If its not going to make money, then its not going to get built.
I want apartments like these to be built everywhere. We should do away with FAR, parking minimums, setback rules, height restrictions and staircase requirements entirely. If the demand for housing is there, let developers build what they want rather than be mired in red tape or forced to pander to self centred NIMBYs who stand in the way of progress. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and we should prioritise what’s best for the majority of people
If . . . developers prioritized the needs of the people, instead of their own profit. Hence the iron grip.
Or maybe use creativity to create spaces for every taste. Many people need cars and disability-accessible buildings. The needs of the few are just as important as the needs of the many.
Great, get rid of bike lanes. The needs of the many (cars) outweigh the needs of the few (bicycles)
plenty of valuable content bro.
The lack of access to a workshop is the deal breaker for me.
I love how you're all basically coming up with these wild, innovative solutions...which are exactly what I have in my 1880s apartment here in Scotland 😂Shared spaces and amenities, tight to the so the communal space out back is better, no parking, got 'em all. Check out neighbourhoods like Hyndland in Glasgow and Marchmont in Edinburgh. Although we don't have terrifying walkways in the air, that's a hard pass from me and my vertigo!
You can build apartments that aren't massive towers with just one staircase. Frankly, I'd prefer that buildings were limited to just 3 or 4 floors anyway, with businesses like grocery stores and gyms and banks and breweries and urban farms on the first (or 4th) floors.
What really needs to happen is building apartments over stores again. Affordable and convenient for employees and a good place to start, start over, or get back on your feet. Also a good option for the shopkeeper to have an affordable home near their business.
Loving these Vancouver housing videos!
Shared spaces are awesome! My favorite place I've ever lived in had a central courtyard with tables, chairs, and grills that everyone would come together to have drinks and cook meals.
Single staircase is a no go. Read some nfpa handbooks and learn the price paid in blood for those rules.
Another well done video Uytae! I would love to see many of these designs get built in Vancouver and in many other cities. One amenity idea: bicycle repair and workshop with a bicycle co-op non-profit!
The courtyard design is currently found in a few cities in BC but isn’t super popular as far as I can tell. I found a few builds in Victoria, Nanaimo and even Vancouver.
I noticed they were all on older, larger, more block/square lots as opposed to the ones shown at first.
The Nanaimo example is in the downtown core and was built in the last 5 years. The courtyard still respects the multi staircase requirement and you get some decent end to end units, but I don’t know a ton about it other than that.
I can’t place Victoria’s examples atm but the last one I saw in Vancouver was I think an international village era redevelopment on Hastings, you can easily find it on MLS; it’s some of the cheapest housing you can buy.
Anyway haha just some food for thought.
I recently stayed in an AirBnb with a central courtyard staircase, because I loved the design. But in practice.. I arrived at night and had to lug my stuff up all those flights of stairs. There was no illumination. It had rained, so there were puddles all over. And the “courtyard” was little more than a paved place for the bins. Pretty design in theory, reminded me of all the soap operas I watched with my grandma growing up, but not very nice or practical imo. Give me a nice, spacious elevator instead.
I think if you get rid of set backs you need to make sure there’s rules in place to protect access to sunlight for separate buildings, like stepping a building back after a certain height. But I love the idea of allowing shared courtyards/yards/balconies, and especially public walkways that let you cut through a block away from cars. And the single stair designs seem much more cozy.
You’re describing air rights, a totally separate thing from zoning
@@MrIansmitchell It’s not air rights. I’m not talking about a neighboring property building in your airspace/directly over your yard, I’m talking about them building directly to the property line as high as they can and removing your access to sunlight. This is most definitely a zoning issue. Many cities have mandatory setbacks after a certain height to protect sunlight access to streets, and I’m saying if you’re going to bring the ability to build to the property line to neighborhoods, you also need to bring the sunlight protections-ideally flexible ones, so that if the neighboring property owners mutually agree, they can ignore them for the sake of a shared balcony or something of that nature.
building setbacks for the most part were created to simplify the eminent domain process when widening roads
Set backs are also for fire containment. Fire less easily hop from one building to another. It also eases traffic sounds. My city was stupid enough to grant waivers on parking requirements in condos/apartments and people just end up parking on the streets. Unless you have excellent transit and a bus stop in front of the building, forget it. It's just developers trying to maximize profit.
@@l.5832 maybe a compromise for the parking would be, if a developer is going to build without meeting the parking minimums, then they have to pay for traffic improvements to the surrounding area, or into a city transit fund that expands bus and bike routes. That way gradual improvements would make alternative modes of transit more appealing which could offset the reduced parking, and developers wouldn’t be pocketing all the extra money but it would instead be going to improving the neighborhood overall.
Great to see a new About Here video and great apartments!
Great designs. However, I would hate being in a single family home next to a lot with one of these builds.And, PLEASE do not decrease parking.
The parking issue is because of the way North America design towns and cities. By zoning you have to drive to your work, shop, play area instead of just popping round the corner. Higher density housing has to come with other major changes. Have a shop on the corner, play area in the complex, low traffic neighbourhoods, good public transportation... then you do not need a car.
I think this video will be really helpful for future architecture students to learn different and better ways to design collective housing. Great video!
They should expand them with galvanized square steel and eco friendly wood veneers
It would create a functional and beautiful new bedroom
Gotta borrow some things from grandma first
@@brandonburns6639 i think you mean your 7th aunt
@@phosph0lipid77 this guy gets it!
Regarding the 2 staircases, in the context of Hong Kong where land is limited, we have been using "scissor staircase" in that way it won't take up as much space within the building !
Thank you for creating!! Nervous about the only one stair designs as fire exits are so important. Would want input on if one stair could work safely and for how many people, backed by research. Everything else sounded pretty good!!
If you more information on the fire safety aspect, look up the article "The Case for More Single Stair Buildings in the US" by Michael Eliason (it's on the website Treehugger), or the article "Why does American multifamily architecture look so banal? Here’s one reason" also by Michael Eliason (on the website Architect's Newspaper). They both discuss single-staircase apartments, and most notably point out that nearly every country in the world other than US and Canada allow these types of buildings, and there is no noticeable fire safety improvement that the US and Canada are getting.
Fire safety is ultimately more about ensuring that fire can't start easily, and if it does start, that it can't spread, and you don't need two staircases to accomplish those goals.
If you want more information on the fire safety aspect, look up the article "The Case for More Single Stair Buildings in the US" by Michael Eliason (it's on the website Treehugger), or the article "Why does American multifamily architecture look so banal? Here’s one reason" also by Michael Eliason (on the website Architect's Newspaper). They both discuss single-staircase apartments, and most notably point out that nearly every country in the world other than US and Canada allow these types of buildings, and there is no noticeable fire safety improvement that the US and Canada are getting.
Fire safety is ultimately more about ensuring that fire can't start easily, and if it does start, that it can't spread, and you don't need two staircases to accomplish those goals.
Watch his other video he linked to, it goes through safety issues in detail
He didn't really help visualize how a 1 stair design could improve your quality of life in your unit.
2 stairs turns your apartment unit into a hotel room:
1. You have a long skinny dark depressing hallway that you have to walk through to get to your unit. No one likes to talk to each other in this hallway, everyone just tries to get to their unit as fast as possible. 2. Your unit can only face one side of the building, not the other side since the long hallways blocks off half the building from you.
Now what does it mean to have 1 stair?
Your unit can now be built to wrap around the stairs and be on BOTH sides of the building. You can have some rooms on the north side, and some rooms on the south side. This means you can throw open a window on both sides and have crossflow air flowing from north to south providing ventilation and cooling your apartment down. This means you have natural light coming into your apartment from both sides - which allows you to have light both in the morning and in the evening. It means that you have natural light throughout your unit instead of just coming in from one side and deeper rooms being in the dark. It means your apartment layout can have a more balanced layout, with a central living room and other rooms branching out from that center.
You can look at apartment layouts in much of the world outside of North America to see how this looks like - see apartment tours in europe and asia.
But my point is - when you don't understand the huge benefit it is to your apartment living experience having 1 staircase is - you fear the consequences of getting rid of the 2nd staircase. But if you were inside the 1 staircase unit touring it as a prospective tenant - you would immediately prefer it over the 2 staircase unit - you will subconsciously realize the 1 staricase unit is way better - even if you don't make the logical connection that it's because of the staircase.
@@Quazgar_of_the_North Sounds good thanks!
I really, REALLY enjoyed this. This is something I can happily use to browbeat lots of people who complain about regulation and then refuse to remove these ones in the same breath.
It would be nice to have more high density options, but I don't think that will fix the issue with community. 30 years ago even suburbs had very strong communities.
I feel that using architecture to fix social problems will only result in avoiding fixing the actual thing that may be causing this problem.
What noooo I’m sure stacking 30 people on top of each other Won’t lead to any problems.
7:19 The Korean design by Oh & Song is the best! I'd definitely live there.
Grenfell Tower in London was a single staircase building. The decision that was made to upgrade the block was the wrong one, resulting in the deaths of dozens of the apartment residents in the 2017 fire.
The single staircase was a contributing factor to the deaths of Grenfell. There were other factors like the use of materials on the cladding that were not fire resistant, advising residents to stay put instead of evacuating, and there were no sprinklers.
Interior wise it's mainly the television that oppresses the layout. Without TV you can do whatever you want with that rectangle you got.
Some dude once said - The times they are a changing
So happy you're back! Excellent channel. I learned a lot from your videos. Thank-you
Very cool concepts, and some of these are one's I'd be happy to live in. But I would think those regulations were put in for a reason. The fire thing makes sense, and maybe it would be fine if we revisited it, and used studies/data to make sure we'd be okay eliminating that rule. Not all rules were created equal, and there probably are ones that were set up for either aesthetic reasons or NIMBYs, so I like the idea of making sure all these rules make sense in the modern day.
The fire thing no longer makes sense. This isn't even debatable now due to modern fire suppression systems.
@@James-vj5hz I don't know. It seems like one of those things where the risk, even if it seems unlikely, is just way too terrible to justify the reward. Our sprinkler system was out for some unknown period of time just because cold weather caused some sort of false fire alarms that burst the sprinklers in multiple buildings, including ours.
These "rules" are called building codes. Building codes are not created for aesthetics or because of NIMBY's. They are created for public safety - period. They are also constantly reviewed and updated.
In germany, almost all apartment buildings have a single staircase design. I don't think we're more likely to die in fires tbh.
Of course there are more differences that factor in, but I don't think safety is a real/major reason against single staircase designs for most buildings (anymore).
I would assume a lot of regulations are because of traditions "we always did it like this" and history "there was a reason that's not there anymore" (and lobbying). At least that's my view and experience with a lot of our building regulations.
Edit: I forgot English words and corrected myself.
yeah, if one staircase is inaccessible due to fires, a second staircase is a literal lifesaver
Great video! YIMBY!!! It’s amazing how much outdated fire codes (amongst many other politician-led codes) affect building designs.
So many cool ideas! I sent your last video on single stair apartment buildings to my parents and everyone I know. I live in Calgary and I think changing that rule is possibly the single most effective thing we could do to build better, denser neighbourhoods. We have so many empty lots here beside cool old walk-up apartments. Too often they just get knocked down to make space for the standard oversized apartment blocks, rather than filled in one by one. It makes the streetscape really antiseptic. I also loved your point that it would be much less risky from a capital perspective to build these on smaller parcels. I love the idea of smaller scale builders being able to do this.
Ahh new About Here video! Go crazy!!!
I was just watching the ADU video yesterday to study about for public comment at city council meeting about Chicago's ADU pilot program
Communal areas require respect and like-minded values. Good luck with that.
Just say "I'm racist" that's a lot quicker and gets your point across much better.
@@dropyourself Nobody said anything about race, but that's your only argument. Pathetic.
Love the idea! I won’t live in a typical hallway-down-the-middle building.