Что я видел

[cema]

Photos from a phone. No postprocessing, so-so quality.

A door in Glouster, MA.


Fall in an office park.


Inside MIT Stata Center (hosting EECS department and more). Beautiful meaningless architecture.

This is inside the building, yes. Beauty is in the eye etc, but meaning is how usable it is. Not very. I wanted to get down to the ground floor from the fourth by stairs. One led me only to the third floor. Another led me to a point in between the third and fourth floors where a small elevator deck was located. I got down by elevator, but what would I do in case of a fire?

A Lisp machine in MIT Museum. Should have used a real photo camera.



Bottom line: the phone camera sucks. Just 2M pixels, poor optics, and little control overall.

Update. More photos in the comments.

Comments

[eta-ta.livejournal.com]

No.
The legally binding term is fire-protected, not fire-resistant. Materials could be fire-resistant (for a certain measured amount of time); - complete systems, like enclosures that includes functional openings, are "fire-protected". There are standards for the amount of hours the fire-protected enclosure should withstand fire and smoke; the fire stairs in the commercial building should withstand a minimum of 1.5hrs, depending on the use of the structure and type of occupancy. ["Use" and "occupancy" are also legal terms, determined by a zoning regulations of the municipality and national building codes]
"Looking nice and fancy" has nothing to do with functionality of the spaces in the building - these words, indeed, are meaningless where function is discussed. "Usability" is an imprecise synonym for precise term: "functionality".
Functionality of the floor plan is determined by effectiveness of the space planning that architect used to achieve particular function according to the program. Example - one of the functions of the floor plan is technically measured performance of the life safety devices, constructed as well as mechanical.
Constructed: spaces within one floor plan should be classified according to occupancy (business room, like office, should be separated from an assembly room, like an auditorium, by a fire-rated wall; location of exits into a fire-protected enclosure should be within travel distance determined by a local fire code according to the occupancy type (300 feet for a light industrial building within NYC, from the farthest unprotected point to the center of the threshold of fire-rated door; leading into protected enclosure - for instance)

Etc, etc.

During 14+ years in the business I've designed a lot of interior spaces compliant with various codes, S. There is no uncertainty here, and no discrepancies in definitions.

[cema.livejournal.com]

Right: "protected", not "resistant".

Usability and functionality are distinct terms in Computer Science; the situation may, of course, be different in other disciplines.

Here is a relevant photo (from the same bunch):

[eta-ta.livejournal.com]

Relevant how? We were talking about interior architecture, not site and landscape.

[cema.livejournal.com]

Relevant how?

Tangentially. In the case of a fire, if I am stuck in a building, I would want at lest the hydrants to work. Firemen Firepeople usually arrive quickly. And I do not have another photo of the interior (in the current bunch of phone photos).

[eta-ta.livejournal.com]

You can say "firemen", it is still allowed!

If you want to feel confident that you're fire-protected (ha!) inside the building, search for few things: 1)there should be sprinkler heads on the ceiling (sometimes they are recessed and not so easy to spot), at a minimum of 7'0" radius off center, 2) corridors and fire escape routs should be indicated with directional exit signs mounted either on the ceiling or wall above 7'6", the fire-rated (metal) doors into the fire-protected stairs should have panic hardware (to be swinging into the stair space by pushing on the panic bar; no levers), the conference and toilet rooms should be equipped with fire strobes (light signals) and fire alarm sirens (audio), the escape route inside enclosures should be indicated at 1'8" off the floor with luminescent yellow tape, that glows in the darkness and smoke.

There are other devices, but they are not so visible.

Hydrants I never care for...not my department!

[cema.livejournal.com]

Panic hardware is interesting. What is it used for, and how easy is it for an untrained person organism to use it?

As a computer programmer, "panic hardware" has a very different meaning for me! Actually, I would expect to see "hardware panic". Googling pairs it with "exit hardware", which, in turn, reminds me of software. :-)

[eta-ta.livejournal.com]

Or, that's easy.
When you're inside the room, and there is a fire and smoke around you, you can't see where the lever or a knob on the door is. Also, when panicking, people tend to collect at the door, with little space for the door to open into the interior of the room. So the fire exit doors by code are swinging OUT of the affected room and INTO the safe enclosure. They also have bar hardware, which you don't have to see in the smoke - you just push at the bar, and it releases the door (or the panicky people behind you push YOU into the door, and it still opens). The bar is long enough (reaches across the door, which by code is a minimum of 34" wide), so in whatever spot you happen to push it, even if you';re close to hinge side, the door will open and let you into the fire-protected enclosure.

[cema.livejournal.com]

Yes, I remember those doors at fire exits. One of the first impressions from the US. (Another one was a different design of the toilet.)

[eta-ta.livejournal.com]

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Panic_bar.jpg