I have problems understanding what that means. Why would it be any kind of problem that e.g. opening my apartment door takes "public space" in the hallway for the few seconds when I keep the door open? To me that sounds like saying car doors should always open inwards because otherwise they'd be taking public space when you enter or exit the car. :)

I recall earlier some saying it is a problem because then people can't keep stuff on the hallway (because the front doors of apartments could hit the stuff)... but here that is not a problem either because people are not even allowed to keep stuff outside their apartments in the hallways. It is considered as a fire hazard, the hallways must be clear of any extra objects all the time.

EDIT: Come to think of it, that is a similar question to me, should car doors always open inwards, or at least up like on Lamborghini Countach? It is true we always have to be a bit cautious when opening a car door so that we don't hit anyone with it, or a passing car hits our door... yet somehow we still manage with such car doors.

The car analogy doesn't quite work because the car itself is taking up public space anyway so it doesn't matter if its doors open inwards or not.

I said it's just a matter of principle, not if it's open for 5s or 10h. The hall is public property so your house should not extend itself to occupy it, especially if it can just as easily open inwards to your own private property.

But I guess you just don't follow this principle. So it's like imputing two different variables into an equation and getting two distinct yet equally correct answers.

Edit: As for your second question, we probably manage to not hit anyone due to the huge ass windows on the door itself and all around the car.

I'd assume most people understand that doors open outward and would be cautious (like what happens here in hospitals and whatnot where they'll have this tape on the ground which shows the arc which the door takes).
That depends on whether they're an in-law, traveling salesman, or a Jehovah's Witness.
If any of the above, yes.
Glass...blocks...?
I'm having trouble visualizing this.

Also known as glass brick.

Huh. I don't think I've actually ever seen anything like that before.

You didn't live through the 1980's, then. That crap was EVERYWHERE (along with pastel paint colors, think Don Johnson in Miami Vice).

Maybe it is about the difference in legislation or something. If I think about e.g. my apartment, the hallway to which the front door opens isn't really "public property" in the sense that everyone owns it. The whole apartment house, including the hallways naturally, are owned by the housing association (taloyhtiö), of which I also own a part because I¨ve bought one of the apartments. In our case the housing association (that is, me and all my neighbours who own their apartments) also owns the plot on which the apartment house is.

It may be this kind of "housing association" thing is quite a Finnish thing, at least I've heard that in many other (western) countries it is a completely alien concept. We have annual housing association meetings where we (home owners) decide together about expenses, incoming renovations to the house etc. We are in charge, we decide together what happens to the house, and in the house.

So what I meant to say is that the hallways are not public property in a sense that e.g. the state owns them, and anyone is allowed to come to the hallways just to spend time (if none of the residents doesn't approve it, or thei are not officials like policemen etc.). That's why we have the numeric lock in the apartment house entrance door, in order to keep drifters out. of the hallways, the storage areas etc.

That aside, I still didn't quite understand your Japanese kitchen window example. Do you mean that in Japan none of the apartment windows are allowed to open outwards because then they would be taking "public airspace" or something? That just sounds very odd to me. Or was there a neighbour apartment right next to your apartment so your kitchen window would open into their kitchen? I just have hard time imagining what the actual problem there was that you had to build a "block window" instead.

Sometime earlier I showed a photo of how the PC gaming room in my apartment looks like when I look out of the window (attached below). Who exactly would be inconvenienced if I'd open a window outward, the owls in the nearby forest? Or is it just about a principle, my windows should never open towards those trees outside because then I am taking their airspace?

As a sidenote, the ventilation windows at my home actually do open inwards, rather than outwards. But I presume this is not because we are not allowed to take any "public airspace", but simply because it would be much harder to open, close and wash the windows if they opened outwards. I don't want to drop to the ground from this high trying to wash the windows, or reach them in order to close them... :) Plus. the house looks neater from outside when the windows don't open outwards.

I guess this is a good thread to learn about these kinds of things, like I just can't now quite understand that "Japanese problem". I presume it is about the legislation there?

I've seen such in bathrooms, and some saunas. And yeah maybe it was an 80s thing mostly.

You can't open such windows though. If the kitchen window is not allowed to open outwards, why not put a window which opens inwards, or even slides to the side? In e.g. Thailand those kind of "sliding windows" seem to be quite common.

We have the same association, we call it a "condomínio". No it's not public property as in it belongs to the state, it's public property because it belongs to the association, of which you are only one member of many.

The kitchen thing wasn't in Japan, it's in Brazil, I just mentioned that when I lived in Japan I saw doors there also open outwards , but that's because of the shoes thing.

It's really not complicated, my property ends at the wall. The other side of the wall is the neighbours' property. I wanted to put a window there. The window can't open outward because it would be standing on my neighbours' property. No, his house isn't tall enough to reach my kitchen. Maybe he will want to build something that is as tall one day, maybe not. It's still his property, and my window can't occupy his property.

The window is right over the kitchen sink, and the kitchen isn't very big anyway, so the inwards window would have been in the way, and we felt the glass bricks would look better and let just as much light in, plus it was a joint decision by the association. We put the sliding windows in when we closed the balcony.

In Portugal most doors are placed as close to the street as possible. It makes people standing in wait easier to target with water balloons since they get no cover. It also makes it much more complicated to unlock and open the house door while holding an umbrella (even if we can push them open with our shoulder), but I think it is a price worth paying. :-)

The other big problem of having doors opening outwards is that you are just begging to have a bucket of water placed over the door, that would be triggered when it opens. It is trivial for your next door neighbour to set that up! Here in Portugal, if you try to set up something of the sort, you know the hard part is to escape safely since you will usually have to get past your (angry) target.
That and the good old pile of sand by your doorstep — it never gets old!
I suppose Finish people are more civilized than us here. :-P

But I guess culture may have something to do with it. Down here, if we open the door and notice someone was eavesdropping on our conversation, we invite that person in, so that they can hear better. Over there on the north, you just slam the door against there face and chase them away. Thus, we tend invite people in, you prefer to show people out. :-)


Oh, this keeps getting more and more interesting! I hope you don't mind my further inquiry...
Are bathrooms as small as possible in Finland? Don't the doors block the corridor? I guess you usually leave them closed when not in use.

Traditionally they have been quite small in order not to waste building area from other rooms, but nowadays new apartments are required by law to have bigger bathrooms, with the idea that they must always be usable also by people using wheelchairs (e.g. when people get older). Many are irritated by this, feeling their bathrooms/toilets are extraordinarily big compared to the rest of the (new) apartment. Maybe they will feel differently when they get older and don't move as easily, I dunno (yet).

At least in my earlier (smaller) apartment, if the bathroom door would have opened inwards, I couldn't have fit a washing machine inside because it would have hit the washing machine. So luckily it opened outwards.

*Goes to check*
In my current apartment I have two toilets, one smaller one in the entrance corridor, and another bigger one (which is both a bathroom and a toilet) between one of the bedrooms and the kitchen.

Both doors block walking area somewhat if they are half-open 90 degrees (e.g. the smaller toilet door blocks at maximum half of the width of the corridor)... but both can be opened fully so that the door goes all the way to the wall, in which case they don't really block anything. So it depends if you open the door only halfway, or all the way.

Yep, who'd want the germs creeping to the rest of the apartment anyway... :) But as said, at least in my current apartment I could just as well keep the doors wide open and they wouldn't block anything, as they'd be parallel to the walls.

In my older small apartment... I think it blocks too much of the entrance corridor if it was left open all the time, making it harder to get in/out of the apartment.

Talking about toilets and country customs:

In Japan the traditional toilet is completely different to the western style.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squat_toilet

it is a little whole in the floor over which you cower/squat and doing your business. And if used properly far more hygienic as the western style.

That is something different ;)

Yes they have comfy toilets as well, with heated seats and WTF-ever ;) I didn't like them, you always had the feeling the toilet was just used before.....always made me shudder....

ok, those toilets are not really relaxing ;)
But it worked quite well for me. You just have to get used too. But for public toilets, me thinks, they are great, no physical contact, no germs or whatever ;)
And bloody easy to clean!

But not good for reading your Groschen-Roman (those westerns and similar, which are not real size books) on there ;)

The domestic toilets in Japan are all western style. The squat ones you only see in some public places, and even then you can usually find a western style one in the very next stall. That's what I did, I made sure to never ever use a squat toilet the entire time I was there.

It seems they've been almost completely westernized in this sense.

EDIT: Looks like you just clarified this, so my post ended up a bit redundant.

Not all, I was never able to find out really, but in the old houses you still find the traditional ones, but from the 60/70? they only used western ones for domestic ones.

And one thing I know for sure ;) the international Tokyo Airport at my time did not have a single western style toilet! Reason why I know it, got of the plain and I had some urgency, I mean urgency to visit the toilet. (yes we visit toilets not restrooms ;) )
Got into the area, opened halve the doors when the guy cleaning there was just shaking his head, indicating, no western style toilets around. Might have changed nowadays though, that's roughly 15 years ago (IIRC)