[wscott]

That article gave an example of a "typical European floorplan". It did have multiple stairs they were just not normally accessible from all apartments. If you had some emergency-only provision to enter your neighbor's apartment and then bust their wall to access the apartment behind it, more than one egress would be possible. Some emergency doors where an alarm would sound perhaps? I come up with all kinds of problems with this, but that was my thoughts looking at that floorplan.

[Symbiote]

Part of the fire safety of the European design will be containment: firewalls between the apartments, which would be compromised by emergency doors.