Architecture
Over the last five years or so, maybe a little bit more, downtown Columbia has been sprouting these student apartments everywhere there’s space for them and a lot of places there isn’t (displacing existing local businesses). One thing about them is that they all look alike – basically they’re long boxes, four or five stories tall, with various superficial architectural features that don’t really do anything to hide the fact that they’re long boxes.
This week I finally found out why this is! Apparently they are a type of building called “five over one” or “five on one” that consists of one story of poured concrete and four or five stories of “stick” (wood frame) construction, the same kind you see in single family homes. Apparently this used to violate fire codes, but in 2009 the nationwide model code updated to allow it (with increased sprinkler requirements, I think?). And it spread because it’s cheap. You don’t need as skilled labor to assemble pre-cut and pre-attached wood frames as you do to build the steel frames that used to be required.
Here are the articles I read about this in.
_ Why America’s New Apartment Buildings All Look the Same - Bloomberg
The new Seattle, where everything looks the same | Crosscut
Community Architect: How “One-Plus-Five” is Shaping American Cities
Updates on the hellscape we live in
A thread written by @gilbertlisak
Teacher trainings for school shooter response are both terrifying and useless. And almost certainly profitable.
A Night at the Garden
A film compiling footage of a Nazi rally in the US by the German-American Bund, before Pearl Harbor.
The magical thinking of guys who love logic | The Outline
Why online “rationalists” are typically less rational than average.
New Studies Show Pundits Are Wrong About Russian Social-Media Involvement in US Politics | The Nation
Russiagate is brain worms for liberals who are unwilling and unable to look for domestic causes for Trump’s win. We’re entering the primary season again, and it looks like we’re going to repeat the mistakes of 2016 or worse, because Americans are incapable of learning anything.