[slownews45]

I'm curious - reading this makes me depressed at how stupid HN and reactionary HN seems to have become.

Do people not realize that in California we build residential buildings that are MANY MANY stories tall.

The LACK of operable windows in a bedroom is generally a REQUIREMENT on a skyscraper / residential condo tower for safety reasons. They worry about kids falling out etc.

The safety plans involve other measures - including much better building codes around fire control (ie, sprinklers). Fire hardened emergency exists (ie, these students may be moving out of historic all wood tinderboxes if my old CA school is any indication).

[xg15]

There is a difference between not having windows that can be fully opened and not having windows at all. As others have said, windows have other psychological functions, such as giving orientation, providing daylight, etc.

> The safety plans involve other measures - including much better building codes around fire control

We could all see at Grenfell Tower in London how well that worked.

[Aerroon]

>The LACK of operable windows in a bedroom is generally a REQUIREMENT on a skyscraper / residential condo tower for safety reasons. They worry about kids falling out etc.

Can you explain more on this point? Because tall buildings not having windows that open because children might fall out of them sounds completely ridiculous to me. Some of the Soviet commie blocks were 16 storeys tall and obviously the windows can be opened.

What are the other reasons why this restriction would be in place? I'm genuinely curious.

[slownews45]

Sure.

One issue is that for tall buildings a fair bit of thought goes into things like aerodynamics of overall building, ventilation / HVAC control, and internal pressures.

A tall building has an issue with its core / utilities usually, the taller the go generally the worse the ratio of non-livable space to livable. So things that mess with for example HVAC efficiency may be seen as a negative.

If everyone opens a window on one side of a building, over building surface areas and wind speeds at heights, you can get pretty crazy pressure issues. You can also get aero issues. You an also run into HVAC issues (ie, volume of air from 3 open large windows on the 40th floor may overwhelm HVAC system capacity).

Let me ask you, you are building a skyscraper to rent.

If you allow folks to open their windows and the wind blows something out that kills someone on the street - who will be sued? If someone drops something out (trying to put a plant in window or stick a telescope out) and kills someone - who pays. If someone falls out that window, who will be sued (see a cruise line that had a stupid idiot hold a kid through the window and drop them).

Other issues are around maintenance and weather proofing etc etc. Again, environment at height can often be harsh, and now you may have to have someone on side of building to replace a window or related mechanisms. Easy in a house at ground level, a pain at height.

BTW - I like windows that open and would NOT live in a tall res condo. My key point was that all the folks talking about how window exists are required - it's so weird seeing people speak with such certainty on something so easily disprovable.

I think up to 30 floors or so and older places it was common for windows to open (they were also built differently, more open space / daylighting / shallower footprints (ie, H shape buildings vs full block buildings).

[heartbreak]

I live in a tall (>30 floors) residential building in Texas, and all of our windows open. I wouldn’t want to use one as an exit in a fire, though. Even going down the stairs during an alarm took ~10 minutes.

[xg15]

How do you vent your room?

[anonuser123456]

> Some of the Soviet commie blocks were 16 storeys tall and obviously the windows can be opened.

The Soviet system was not exactly known for its fidelity to safety of its citizens.

[Aerroon]

They're still in use today though and I'm unaware of them being somehow much more dangerous as a result.