ever wonder why apartment buildings in north america look like massive concrete blocks while european cities have those cute narrow buildings that actually fit into neighborhoods?
turns out the answer is staircases. specifically, a really weird building code requirement that’s been quietly shaping entire cities for over a century.
the building you’ve never heard of
in most desirable neighborhoods around the world, theres this thing called a “point access block.” one staircase, one elevator, connects everything. these buildings are compact and slender, with fewer apartments per floor.
what this means is apartments can wrap around the stairwell and have windows on multiple sides. cross ventilation. actual natural light. flexible layouts that work for families.
you see them everywhere in paris, berlin, tokyo. they fit into existing neighborhoods without destroying the character of the street. they’re efficient and they work.
so why don’t we have them here?
the two-staircase rule that changed everything
here’s the problem – building codes in the US and canada require two separate staircases for anything above two or three stories. this requirement is way stricter than basically anywhere else in the world, and it completely changes what you can build.
two staircases eat up a ton of floor space. to make the economics work, developers have to build bigger. way bigger. which is why north american apartment buildings are these massive things that take up entire blocks.
why this makes housing worse
bigger buildings need bigger properties. you cant just buy one lot and build something – you need to assemble multiple properties which is expensive and complicated and takes forever.
single staircase buildings can be small. you can build them on single lots. which means you could actually add housing in neighborhoods that desperately need it without bulldozing everything.
but theres another problem nobody talks about.
the hallway problem
two staircases means you need a central hallway connecting them. which means your building gets cut in half lengthwise. which means almost every apartment only has windows on one side.
one side. thats it.
no cross ventilation, limited natural light, and forget about flexible layouts. most units end up being these long narrow things with all the rooms in a row. try fitting multiple bedrooms into that configuration – it sucks.
meanwhile in europe and asia, apartments wrap around a single stairwell with windows on two or three sides. you can actually design interesting floor plans. you can build family-sized units that dont feel like train cars.
the two-staircase rule doesn’t just make buildings bigger – it makes them worse.
where this came from
this whole thing started in the 1600s when cities kept burning down. early building codes were basically “hey maybe dont build everything out of wood and put it directly next to other wood.”
george washington was out here in the late 1700s trying to ban wood frame buildings because urban fires were genuinely terrifying. the first official US building code showed up in 1788 in north carolina.
by 1905 the national board of fire underwriters created standardized codes and the two-staircase rule got baked in. made sense at the time – buildings were literal firetraps and you needed multiple escape routes.
but that was 120 years ago.
do we still need this?
fire safety technology has changed dramatically. sprinkler systems, fire-resistant materials, smoke detectors, modern construction techniques – we’ve gotten really good at not burning buildings down.
so the question is whether this rule is still protecting people or just making it impossible to build the housing we actually need.
some cities are already figuring this out. seattle recently relaxed the requirement and allows single-staircase buildings under certain conditions. the buildings dont burst into flames. people dont die. they just get more housing options that are actually affordable and work for families.
what happens if we change it
rethinking this one rule could completely transform north american cities. smaller buildings that fit into neighborhoods. more diverse housing types. apartments with actual natural light and ventilation. family-sized units that dont cost a fortune.
we could build the kind of walkable, human-scaled neighborhoods that people are literally flying to europe to experience.
all because of staircases. wild right?
Davin is a jack-of-all-trades but has professional training and experience in various home and garden subjects. He leans on other experts when needed and edits and fact-checks all articles. Also an aspiring cook we he researches and tries all kinds of different food recipes and shares what works best.