Yesterday, Austin City Council voted 10-1 in favor of a building code amendment that will allow single-stair apartment buildings up to five storeys and with 4 homes per floor. This is progress. Austin now joins Seattle, New York, and possibly other US cities in allowing this building type, which is a type that is widespread outside of North America. Paris, for instance, allows single-stair buildings up to 50m.

In all of these newly allowable cases, there's usually a requirement to sprinkler the building and cap the number of homes per floor, among other life safety requirements. What I'm not clear on, though, is how flexible these new codes are in allowing larger apartment buildings.

In my opinion, it's better (and hopefully more accurate) to think about unit maximums on a per stair basis as opposed to a per floor basis. Because that's how you create larger point-access block buildings: you cluster multiple blocks together, each with its own exit stair. Is that allowed in these building codes? I'm not exactly sure, but one would hope.

Regardless of this important detail, I continue to be impressed by Austin's willingness to drive positive change in its housing market. It makes you wonder: What the hell is taking Toronto so long? Single-stair buildings up to 6 storeys should already be permissible. We should be leading.

Cover photo by Clark Van Der Beken on Unsplash

One of the things I included in my list of "how to improve the feasibility of infill housing" was the adoption of single-stair buildings. So today I'm happy to share that next week the Canadian Urban Institute — in collaboration with LGA Architectural Partners — will be hosting a series of online micro-conferences covering this topic. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that LGA is one of the leading voices, if not the leading voice, advocating for this important building code change.

Here are the event posters:

And here are the links if you'd like to register for any of the sessions:

• Single Stair Sessions Day 1 — "The 3 Ps: Pilot Projects and Prototypes"

• Single Stair Sessions Day 2 — "The 2 Ss: Safety and Sustainability"

• CityTalk | Live — "Addressing Canada's Housing Supply: Can Regulations Drive Housing Innovation?"

We are actively underwriting new missing middle housing across central Toronto. And I can tell you that project feasibility would benefit enormously from this code change. Single-stair buildings are also allowed in many/most other parts of the world, and so we already know that it can make for better homes and that it doesn't need to compromise life safety. It's great that the city-building community is now increasingly focused on this opportunity.

Cover photo by Mika Wegelius on Unsplash

Here is another great video from About Here talking about how breaking certain rules could make for better apartment buildings.

The basis for the video is a design competition put on by Urbanarium, called Decoding Density, which asked participants to propose creative solutions for "six-story plus apartment forms in Metro Vancouver."

More specifically, the competition asked: How might Vancouver intensify its single-family neighborhoods with small-scale wood-frame apartments?

The About Here video covers some of the common themes from the submissions and, not surprisingly, the first is single-stair buildings. Requiring only a single point of egress can really unlock small sites.

Some of the other ideas are, perhaps, a bit more adventurous; but these are valuable exercises. Many rules are dumb. So it's important that we continually question them and search for better ways.

Yesterday, Austin City Council voted 10-1 in favor of a building code amendment that will allow single-stair apartment buildings up to five storeys and with 4 homes per floor. This is progress. Austin now joins Seattle, New York, and possibly other US cities in allowing this building type, which is a type that is widespread outside of North America. Paris, for instance, allows single-stair buildings up to 50m.

In all of these newly allowable cases, there's usually a requirement to sprinkler the building and cap the number of homes per floor, among other life safety requirements. What I'm not clear on, though, is how flexible these new codes are in allowing larger apartment buildings.

In my opinion, it's better (and hopefully more accurate) to think about unit maximums on a per stair basis as opposed to a per floor basis. Because that's how you create larger point-access block buildings: you cluster multiple blocks together, each with its own exit stair. Is that allowed in these building codes? I'm not exactly sure, but one would hope.

Regardless of this important detail, I continue to be impressed by Austin's willingness to drive positive change in its housing market. It makes you wonder: What the hell is taking Toronto so long? Single-stair buildings up to 6 storeys should already be permissible. We should be leading.

Cover photo by Clark Van Der Beken on Unsplash

One of the things I included in my list of "how to improve the feasibility of infill housing" was the adoption of single-stair buildings. So today I'm happy to share that next week the Canadian Urban Institute — in collaboration with LGA Architectural Partners — will be hosting a series of online micro-conferences covering this topic. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that LGA is one of the leading voices, if not the leading voice, advocating for this important building code change.

Here are the event posters:

And here are the links if you'd like to register for any of the sessions:

• Single Stair Sessions Day 1 — "The 3 Ps: Pilot Projects and Prototypes"

• Single Stair Sessions Day 2 — "The 2 Ss: Safety and Sustainability"

• CityTalk | Live — "Addressing Canada's Housing Supply: Can Regulations Drive Housing Innovation?"

We are actively underwriting new missing middle housing across central Toronto. And I can tell you that project feasibility would benefit enormously from this code change. Single-stair buildings are also allowed in many/most other parts of the world, and so we already know that it can make for better homes and that it doesn't need to compromise life safety. It's great that the city-building community is now increasingly focused on this opportunity.

Cover photo by Mika Wegelius on Unsplash

Here is another great video from About Here talking about how breaking certain rules could make for better apartment buildings.

The basis for the video is a design competition put on by Urbanarium, called Decoding Density, which asked participants to propose creative solutions for "six-story plus apartment forms in Metro Vancouver."

More specifically, the competition asked: How might Vancouver intensify its single-family neighborhoods with small-scale wood-frame apartments?

The About Here video covers some of the common themes from the submissions and, not surprisingly, the first is single-stair buildings. Requiring only a single point of egress can really unlock small sites.

Some of the other ideas are, perhaps, a bit more adventurous; but these are valuable exercises. Many rules are dumb. So it's important that we continually question them and search for better ways.