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Photo: Matthew McDermott

Glow-in-the-dark signs, not helipads, will help more occupants evacuate a building, an architecture professor argues.

For 40 years, Los Angeles’ building code has required all buildings 75 feet and taller to have a rooftop emergency helicopter landing facility in a location approved by the fire chief. The idea in 1974, when the law was passed, was to make skyscrapers safer, in part as a reaction to a catastrophic fire in Brazil. But we know now there are better ways to make structures like the landmark U.S. Bank tower safe. I, for one, am cheering for the recently announced end of a policy requiring flat-topped buildings in Los Angeles. It’s a policy that holds lessons for tall buildings everywhere.

As an urban planner and architect (before becoming a professor, I was an architect at SOM-Chicago, the former Skidmore, Owings & Merrill), I know safety is more critical in tall buildings than in low-rise structures because tall buildings host a greater number of inhabitants and are themselves expensive investments. I also know that, if appropriately designed and built, skyscrapers are safer in many respects than low-rise and mid-rise buildings. They have concrete cores that are designed to withstand the extreme lateral forces and loads that occur during high winds and earthquakes. Fire safety systems in skyscrapers include sprinklers and wet and dry standpipes, to which firefighting hoses can be connected......Continue Reading

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