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21 B C B U S I N E S S . C A J U N E 2 0 24 other jurisdictions reconsider this policy. Virginia is currently looking at changing its laws to allow single staircases in build- ings up to six storeys instead of the current three. Washington is also consulting on whether to expand the Seattle idea state-wide. In Canada, there's even more interest because the code here is so restrictive. Accord- ing to Conrad Speckert—a graduate of the McGill Univer- sity architecture program, the project manager at LGA Archi- tectural Partners in Toronto and a researcher who has dedicated several years of his life to studying the issue—the only country more restrictive than Canada is Uganda, which requires double staircases in any multi-unit buildings over one storey. In Canada, it's over two storeys. "It's a 1941 code, based off U.S. codes in Philadelphia and New York, written in the late 1800s, when a lot of things had burned down," he says. "When this was introduced in 1941, it made a lot of sense. But everything today is so much different." There are sprinkler systems, new materials used in walls to slow down the spread of flames and spring-loaded doors to cut off smoke spread, to name a few. B.C. is currently exploring whether to change its building code, as part of the efforts by Premier David Eby's govern- ment to tackle housing issues on about 20 different fronts. Speckert's research, which informed a recent BC Housing study by Public Architecture in collaboration with GHL building code consultants, is something decision-makers are looking at carefully. Toronto-based firms LGA Architectural Partners and David Hine Engineering Inc. have submitted a request to the Canadian Board for Har- monized Construction Codes, asking it to consider a change to the National Building Code of Canada to allow single-exit designs for small multi-unit residential buildings, as a housing-supply priority for the next five-year update. As well, LGA Architectural Partners has been shortlisted for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's "Housing Supply Challenge" competition to develop solu- tions to the country's supply problems. One of Vancouver's more innovative architects (also a UBC architecture professor), Inge Roecker, will be collaborating with LGA on a single-stair design for a six-storey building on Victoria Drive in Vancouver to demon- strate how it would work. Both Speckert and Roecker emphasize that the idea is not just to get rid of the second staircase and hope for the best in case of a fire. "I'm not asking for unsafe buildings," Roecker states. Any buildings with the point-stair exit need to achieve the same outcomes that the two-staircase design was aim- ing for: maximum safety for residents in case of a fire. That, in general, means en- suring that a fire can't spread from room to room easily (a one-hour safety cushion is what everyone aims for) and that there are measures in place to protect people from smoke, which is the most com- mon way that people die in buildings that burn. There are new, fancy techniques to help with that. One, for example, is "pressurizing" the stairwell— using an HVAC-type device to make the air denser than in the hallway so that smoke is repelled and the stairway remains a safe way to exit. Roecker says that point- stair-exit buildings can actually be safer than current-style buildings with their long, dark, windowless hallways, where residents sometimes have to travel a considerable distance to get to the stairs. "If you're stuck in a smoke-filled hall and nobody sees you, it's unsafe," she explains. She, like many others, is convinced this move would unlock huge potential in the housing-construction world for something beyond the current choice of modest fourplexes on one end and land-assembly- for-towers on the other. It's an especially important change for larger, older cities that are trying to encourage infill construction, often on fairly small lots where the demand for a second stairway can make buildings physically and eco- nomically unworkable. "I call it the missing link to the missing middle," says Roecker. But there are some hurdles to overcome yet. Firefighters in general are wary about the change. They want to know what the specifics are because, for them, the two-staircase model has always provided a safety valve. "If the one stair- well becomes compromised, that blocks the only way out," says Jason Cairney, Surrey's deputy fire chief and a rep for the Fire Chiefs' Association of B.C. In Washington state, fire chiefs are also concerned about allowing the single-exit design everywhere, saying it might not be suitable for rural communities that rely on vol- unteer fire departments. But none of them are arguing that there is evidence that people are more likely to die in fires in single-exit buildings than in double-exit ones. Speckert, the firefighting officials and everyone else say that no data like this exists. So it's going to come down to who makes the best theoretical argument for safety. Or some- one could try to argue that, if we want great films like The Apartment again, it won't work if the nebbishy Jack Lemmon character has to rent a place in a place with grim, dark, double-loaded corridors and no beautiful single entrance. Who knows what arguments will work in this rapidly evolving world. STEPPING UP Renderings of what single-stair design would look like in a building on Victoria Drive in Vancouver

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