A Hackerspace in Germany was proud of its smartphone-activated door lock.
I was less impressed on their open house event when I saw firsthand how they struggled to open it for several minutes (with no mechanical override on the inside!), while dozens of guests were there.
When I voiced my safety concerns they simply didn't seem to understand. I mean it's just a fun hack, right?
Landlords of such spaces are not oblivious; they want all the money for the rent and none of the responsibility of being a real landlord. This is often what artists themselves are looking for since they are under capitalized and want to do questionably legal build outs and events and are willing to take on extra responsibility to be able to so (e.g. fixing pipes, patching holes, doing pest control). But that doesn't absolve the landlord.
In British, I never knew what they were called ("those 'Push Bar To Open' things on fire doors"), apparently "panic bar". As Wikipedia[1] says, "In Europe, the use of panic bars is generally confined to code required applications. On the other hand, in US and Canadian commercial building design panic bars are frequently used even when not required by code."
The only place I see them is designated emergency exits, the type which are normally unopenable from outside and often alarmed. The main doors leading out of a large auditorium don't use them – these don't need to lock, so they use free-swinging doors. The emergency doors at the front/side would use them.
Also that's crazy about that smart door... Pretty sure that's against fire code if it's one of the only exits. Ignorance isn't an excuse when other people's lives are concerned, either.
A Hackerspace in Germany was proud of its smartphone-activated door lock.
I was less impressed on their open house event when I saw firsthand how they struggled to open it for several minutes (with no mechanical override on the inside!), while dozens of guests were there.
When I voiced my safety concerns they simply didn't seem to understand. I mean it's just a fun hack, right?