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The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

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285 points ridruejo | 4 comments | 11 Nov 25 14:34 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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stackskipton ◴[11 Nov 25 21:26 UTC] No.45893105[source]▶
As someone who has some familiarity with this process, just like safety regulations are written in blood, Federal Acquisition rules are written in misuse of money, sometimes criminally.

Yes, we have swung too much towards the bureaucrats but I'm not sure throwing out everything is solution to the issue.

Move fast works great when it's B2B software and failures means stock price does not go up. It's not so great when brand new jet acts up and results in crashes.

Oh yea, F-35 was built with move fast, they rolled models off the production line quickly, so Lockheed could get more money, but it looks like whole "We will fix busted models later" might have been more expensive. Time will tell.

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astrange[dead post] ◴[11 Nov 25 23:18 UTC] No.45894255[source]▶
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koolba ◴[11 Nov 25 23:23 UTC] No.45894290[source]▶
> …and they're about to ban windowless bedrooms which will make office-to-housing conversions impossible.

Where is this not banned?

And it’s not like offices don’t have windows or you can’t cut them. The ban on windowless bedrooms is supposed to prevent renting out a utility closet as a “rustic studio”.

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astrange ◴[11 Nov 25 23:26 UTC] No.45894318{3}[source]▶
No, the ban is because an architect thinks they're icky, sent in a request to ban it, and the building code people take any suggestion to ban anything that anyone sends them. Safety regulations are written in blood, you know!

https://bsky.app/profile/stephenjacobsmith.com/post/3m3xpe3n...

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nradov ◴[12 Nov 25 00:02 UTC] No.45894607{4}[source]▶
The ban on windowless bedroom is at least partly about fire safety. A window provides an escape route for low floors, or a means for firefighters to rescue the occupants.
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gottorf ◴[12 Nov 25 00:08 UTC] No.45894671{5}[source]▶
The GP's point is that levelheaded cost-benefit analyses on things like that seem to escape regulators, and everything is greatly skewed towards "it's worth it if it saves even one life".

Sure, fire safety in homes is a good thing to have. But is it so good that we can't economically build buildings to meet them, and people end up with no home at all?

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nradov ◴[12 Nov 25 00:38 UTC] No.45894939{6}[source]▶
We can economically build buildings with windows on all the bedrooms. That has virtually zero impact on the final price to residents so complaining about it is a total red herring. The actual problem is high land prices, slow permit approval processes, and restrictive zoning codes.
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1. astrange ◴[12 Nov 25 00:42 UTC] No.45894976{7}[source]▶
You can easily build them without windowless bedrooms, yes.

The problem is you can't easily convert office buildings to housing without these, because the floor plates are too different.

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2. nradov ◴[12 Nov 25 01:04 UTC] No.45895183[source]▶
That's only one of many problems with converting office building to residential. While a few conversions have succeeded, usually it's cheaper to just demolish the building and start from scratch. Allowing windowless bedrooms won't change that.
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3. JumpCrisscross ◴[12 Nov 25 09:02 UTC] No.45897940[source]▶
> While a few conversions have succeeded, usually it's cheaper to just demolish the building and start from scratch

Do we have cases of Japan or China converting industrial or office spaces into residences?

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4. roryirvine ◴[12 Nov 25 15:22 UTC] No.45901308{3}[source]▶
I've no idea about Japan or China, but I do know that "office-to-resi" has become reasonably common in the UK.

Since 2013, it's been classed as "permitted development" (so, automatically allowed as long as the building isn't listed as architecturally or historically important), and liberalised further in the early 2020s.

House prices have outstripped commercial rents for most of this century, and change of use is cheaper than demolish-and-rebuild, so I'd expect to see the trend continue.

The issue with unsuitable floor plates is real, though, particularly in larger buildings. One solution is to cut chunks out of the curtain wall, turning part of each floor into an open-air terrace which functions as a light well. The reduction in useable floor area means that's only really viable at the premium end of the market, though - a prominent (albeit mixed-use) example is https://www.constructionenquirer.com/2024/07/18/striking-new...