You are looking at a piece of real estate that was specifically built with the expectation of taking a hit, the building is simply too expensive to justify if you don't have a reasonable expectation of it being nuked, and has several rather odd and expensive extra features that you'd never bother...
Why does the building have windows in the first place if nobody can see them? Since you have a central air system capable of supporting it in an emergency, surely you'd be better off using it all the time rather than having windows that could be breached.
@Cadence Partly aesthetics, people like windows on buildings, they don't like to have to look at huge blank panels of concrete, plus you don't have to pay to light the internal storage/maintenance space.
@Mary It occurs to me that the main reason I put windows was an assumption about building code still requiring them. Either because it's outdated or because it was stupid.
@Cadence It occurs to me that the main reason I put windows was an assumption about building code still requiring them. Either because it's outdated or because it was stupid.
Re: ventilation, by the 7-10 rule (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fallout#The_seven-ten_rule), "the radiation dose rate is reduced by a factor of ten for every seven-fold increase in the number of hours since the explosion", so one would probably want closed circuit ventilation for at least 49 hours (7^2 hr) -> 1% (0.1^2) of the original radiation level) and enhanced filtration for ~100 days (7^4 hr) -> 0.01% (0.1^4) of the original fallout radiation level before resuming normal ventilation.
Re: lead baffle layer, use water tanks instead. The occupants will need a tremendous quantity of water for hosing fallout off of the outside of the structure and its surroundings, preferably into pre-prepared drainage channels that lead to someplace far away.
@GrumpyYoungMan Good to know about the ventilation. The water will get contaminated, and by draining the tanks to clean down the building you are removing shielding.
The shielding already did most of its job absorbing the initial radiation pulse at detonation. Afterwards, if the occupants wash the fallout off the building, then they need less shielding because the fallout and other activated material stuck to the building is much of what causes them to continue to need the shielding.
No worries. Minor correction, though: that first "50 days" in your edit should be 49 hours (2 days) of closed circuit ventilation and the second should be ~100 days of enhanced filtration after the detonation (or equivalently ~98 days after ending closed circuit ventilation).
Re windows: doing completely without means even a brief loss of power is problematic - so you'll need big batteries/generators (on top of what you'd need to run the air filtration) on the assumption that the power infrastructure will go down. Generators, a/c and filtered ventilation to get rid of CO2 all need fairly free air exchange. Many small solid shutters around this physical plant, only opened when needed, would be a massive benefit, but you'd be very vulnerable to a 2nd hit
@Cadence : "Why does the building have windows in the first place if nobody can see them" - because despite the building being designed to survive a nuke, it doesn't mean you can't hope for it not to be targeted as soon as it is completed, so you can still enjoy the luxuries of windows before the attack comes, if it comes at all.
@Cadence : if the bombs come, don't they have at least a short forewarning? If they do, they can live/work exposed to the windows and only retreat inside the building (and/or close the windows with a shutter like in the 2012 Dredd movie) if the bombs indeed fall. But if it takes years or decades for the bombs to fall, why not use it at least until then?
Discussion on answer by Ash: What wou…
Discussion on answer by Ash: What wou…