Apartment design is done differently in Europe than it is in North America. Architectural firm Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter recently completed a lovely project in Oslo that highlights those differences.
In North America, most apartment buildings have a corridor running between two dreary enclosed fire stairs, with a bunch of elevators in the middle. This was done so that in the event of fire, each floor is separated from the other, and there are two means of exit in case one is blocked. The corridor is pressurized so that smells don’t travel from one apartment to the next, and so that