In case you missed it last month, during a Gothamist interview about addressing the housing affordability crisis, NYC Mayor Eric Adams questioned the need to require windows in bedrooms stating “You know, when you sleep it should be dark.” This got many of us in the design industry and beyond imagining a trend of lifeless spaces negatively impacting its occupants. Admittedly, the housing crisis is real, layered and requires a new set of approaches to move the needle; there were many strategies discussed including tax incentives, allowing Single Room Occupancies (SRO) again and the conversion of vacant office buildings into residential spaces (all worthy topics for another blog entry.) And as to not cherry-pick sound bites, the entirety of the mayor’s point was this: “Why can't we do a real examination of the rules that state every bedroom must have a window? You know when you sleep it should be dark. Instead of doing that, have studio apartments with shared living and working spaces.”

First, an important distinction: a studio apartment with windows is very different than allowing multiple windowless bedrooms in an apartment unit or multi-family building. Additionally, compared to being houseless, a safe, lockable shelter, even without a window, is an improvement…but not as a permanent housing solution. Unfortunately, this was not the first time the idea of windowless bedrooms was pitched as a cost-effective solution. Take Munger Hall, a massive dormitory planned for the University of California Santa Barbara which we first learned about via this 99% Invisible podcast. Carolina A. Miranda writes in the LA times “Munger Hall, a.k.a. “Dormzilla,” the warehouse-sized dormitory proposed (and designed) by billionaire non-architect Charlie Munger — a building whose primary architectural feature consists of sleeping rooms that lack windows and therefore access to fresh air and natural light. In lieu of windows, his concept features LED lights — “virtual windows” — that can be adjusted to mimic daylight patterns. As I have previously reported, the proposal flies in the face of years of research on the importance of having access to natural daylight in architecture.” While this approach puts a large dent in the campus housing deficit, we can’t help but wonder at what cost to the well-being of the occupants.

Mayor Adams added the point, “We can’t be so idealistic that we’re not realistic.” Perhaps that is true, in the ‘Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good’ category, but we should not ignore some basic lessons learned on providing a positive built environment for all. So, yes, Mr. Mayor, bedrooms need windows. In fact, most rooms should have windows if it is able to be occupied for long periods of time and does not prevent the required function from occurring such as movie theaters, art museums, and storage facilities. The built environment is not meant to ‘store’ human beings in the most efficient way by weakening precedented building codes and architectural tenets. It should at a minimum provide a safe shelter for its inhabitants and an inspiring sanctuary to create a place of one’s own, dream, gather with family, and yes, even look at the stars from your bedroom window at night. Here are four pre-requisites we believe are relevant as alternate housing solutions are created:

Primary bedroom in Mount Pleasant, SC. [Rush Dixon Architects, Ebony Ellis photographer]

LIFE SAFETY

The International Residential Code R310.1 requires emergency escape and rescue openings for every sleeping room. Stating “Emergency escape and rescue openings shall open directly into a public way, or to a yard or court that opens to a public way” and includes minimum sizes of the opening. The code commentary, which pulls from precedent and historic events, explains “Because so many fire deaths occur as a result of occupants being asleep in a residential building during a fire, the code requires that all basements, habitable attics and sleeping rooms have windows or doors that may be used for emergency escape or rescue. The requirement for emergency escape and rescue openings in sleeping rooms exists because a fire will usually have spread before the occupants are aware of the problem, and the normal exit channels may be blocked.”

HEALTH / VENTILATION

A dramatic part of multi-family housing design history, and one we should drastically learn from, is tenement housing. In the 1800s, as NYC was seeing a large influx of immigrants, structures that contained multiple living units with little thought given to health and safety were built to house the masses. A Smithsonian article states, “Four to six stories in height, tenements contained four separate apartments on each floor, measuring 300 to 400 square feet. Apartments contained just three rooms; a windowless bedroom, a kitchen and a front room with windows. A contemporary magazine described tenements as, ‘great prison-like structures of brick, with narrow doors and windows, cramped passages and steep rickety stairs. . . . In case of fire they would be prefect death-traps, for it would be impossible for the occupants of the crowded rooms to escape by the narrow stairways.’” The Tenement Reform Law of 1879 provided minimum standards for light and ventilation.

NATURAL LIGHT

Humans are wired to be connected to the natural environment. Is it sunny? Raining? Cloudy? Can you see the moon? Exposure to natural light is linked to improved health, productivity, sleep, and mood. Click here for NC State’s article on the benefits of exposure to natural light and here for more on biophilic design. In an era where the average American spends 90% of their time inside and more people live in cities than rural areas, attention to the design of the built environment to increase well-being and a connection to nature is paramount. Moreover, studies have shown increased recovery rates in surgery patients if their room has a view of nature compared to a view of a brick wall - imagine if there were no windows.

DECENCY

There is a theory that those individuals leading the charge about loosening code regulations resulting in windowless bedrooms are likely not going to be the folks living in them. “Developers are trying to cram people into small, dark places, which is symptomatic of a much wider failure to provide the kind of decent housing that we need,” Hugh Ellis, head of policy at the Town and Country Planning Association. As alternatives are imagined, a baseline of decent, even if modest, housing types should be strived for. A guiding light for equity and reverence in the most modest of dwellings is the late Samual Mockbee, founder of Auburn University’s Rural Studio. Paramount lessons beyond design and construction are those in human decency, class and racial differences. Working with the smallest of budgets, the design-build studio strived to create dwellings for Alabama’s poorest county. “It’s got to be warm, dry, and noble.” Samuel Mockbee

So, yes, we can and should do a ‘real examination’ moving forward - just not one that ignores history or humanity.