Onyx Mountain Apartment Complex

The Onyx Mountain Apartment Complex (OMAC), often advertised under Onyx Mountain Luxury Rentals, is a ten-story п-shaped building just northeast of Halcyon Rd and Archangel St. The complex takes up roughly 92,000 square feet (8,547 m²), while the owned land that it resides upon is over 900,000 square feet (83,613 m²). Onyx Mountain's property is quite dense in its tenant capacity, owing to each living quarters being situated very close to one another, horizontally as well as vertically, and having lots of them per floor. Despite this, it has been reviewed to be a sufficiently comfortable and quiet place to live.

History

The Onyx Mountain Apartment Complex was built in 2172, as commissioned by its first landowner and landlord, Lukas Mikhelsen. In the pursuit of ease of construction and scalability, Mikhelsen had in mind that Onyx Mountain's architecture would be based mainly on the design of the much older, Soviet Khrushchyovka architecture, which had been popularized by its namesake Nikita Khrushchev in response to a housing shortage in the late 1940's. Mikhelsen stressed that there be modern tweaks and improvements to the dated Khrushchev design with the intention for it to fit modern Cyberian aesthetics, while still being relatively simple and low-cost to build and scale. Also improved, was the infrastructure and building materials used in most areas, in order to fit building regulations and increase community comfort.

OMAC served its community well under Mikhelsen, and his business stayed afloat without much financial stress, due in part to his quick response time to tenant concerns, but also the simplicity of the Khrushchyovka-like design, where rooms are nearly identical to one another in layout and amenities, which facilitated easy repairs and replacements.

Sometime in the year 2189, ownership of OMAC was transferred over to Mikhelsen's business apprentice at the time, Sylvia Bullow, who now operates the complex as its current landlord. Under Bullow, the complex was renamed to Onyx Mountain Luxury Rentals, though only in advertisements, including that which shows up on online maps. Its official business name remains the same as its original. The land which OMAC resides upon is still owned by Mikhelsen, who occasionally visits OMAC to see how things are going under Bullow's guidance.

Design

Exterior

OMAC was built from the ground up to be a large and dense housing community, with its main n-shaped structure being chock full of living quarters and the hallways and stairwells by which residents navigate them. The main apartment building was was made to be just as sturdy as the ground it's built on, telegraphed by its post-like structures jutting out at all eight corners. On the outside faces, level rows of windows and balconies line the walls all the way around the building, even those walls that face the inner courtyard. For every one set of a single window and balcony, there is a single apartment, no matter the number of bedrooms or lack thereof.

Perimeter

About the perimeter, there is a tall metal fence that sits atop an otherwise shin-high, brick-like foundation. There are four gates that govern access into and out of the property, however only one main gate is used on a regular basis and the other three are generally only used for exiting. Further within from the fence, much of the ground level surrounding the building is taken up by parking spaces. Most of these parking spaces are for residents only, though there is no reserved parking. A small section near the courtyard can be used for either visitors or residents. Within the inner courtyard there lie the central buildings

Residential Interior

On the inside, for each floor there is a single, wide central hallway that extends along the whole length of the building. There exist two main stairwells, one at either end of the building, and both connect each floor from the ground all the way to the roof of the building. There is also an elevator shaft beside each stairwell meant for handicapped persons, plus a larger freight elevator next to those meant for transporting large/heavy objects such as furniture and appliances. The floor plan of each story is essentially identical.

Individual Apartments

For each floor of the main residential building, not including the roof, there are 187 studio apartments, 40 one-bedrooms, 19 two-bedrooms, and 10 three-bedrooms, giving 256 apartments to each level. There are ten floors of this, making 2560 apartments in total for the whole complex. Studio apartments are 196 ft² (18 m²) in area, one-bedrooms are 285 ft² (26 m²) in total, two-bedrooms 390 ft² (36 m²), and three-bedrooms 480 ft² (45 m²). Apartment numbers are first designated by the floor they're on, 1-10, and then the number out of the total apartments on that floor, starting from the southwest corner of the building, and alternating left to right down the hall until terminating at the southeast end. For example, the 105th room on the first floor would be 1105. If on the fifth floor, it would be 5105. All apartments come with at least one full bathroom including a bathtub, attached shower, toilet, and sink. For one-bedroom apartments, it is separate from the bedroom. Two-bedroom and three-bedroom apartments get one common full bathroom plus one master bathroom for one of the rooms.

Features

Per building regulations, the residential interiors' walls are slotted with acoustic insulation, despite being thin, helping to reduce the volume of nuisance sounds that would otherwise be clearly heard, including footsteps. Due to the fact that the building's infrastructure is not fitted with any sort of flammable gas system, all appliances rely only upon electrical power, including water heaters, stovetops and ovens. Furthermore, all OMAC apartments come standard with induction cooktops and above-the-range microwave ovens. All areas that aren't living quarters nor bathrooms are continuously monitored via high-resolution and high-fps CCTV systems, streamed directly to the security room in the management office. All residents have access to electronic quality-of-life accommodations, including a wirelessly linkable thermostat, and a small computerized wall panel for checking a multitude of parameters such as apartment power usage and even main hallway camera angles. Most doors on the property lock and unlock electronically, activated by an RFID chip embedded in the physical key that residents are granted. Residents must simply press the top of their key against the flat panel of the door handle to enter the premises, enter most buildings, and enter their living space. For redundancy purposes, the residents still have a physically working key to unlock their own apartments; however in the case of a total loss of mains and backup power, a resident would have to go through security in order to enter the gate or exterior doors.

Courtyard

The courtyard which is surrounded by the apartment building is comprised of two single-story buildings, the south of which is the managing office for the entire complex, and the north of which is a community amenities area for guests and residents. The management office is where the landlord handles business from, and where the majority of security operations are conducted. The community amenities building is a 12,900 square feet (1,198 m²) enclosed space with a small lounge for guests, and otherwise resident-only service rooms for their convenience, such the likes of a small mail area, a laundry room, a fitness center, a children's play-area, and what is advertised as a "residents' club" (akin to the military's officers' clubs) where residents often socialize. The residents' club is essentially a spacious windowed breakroom with two refrigerators, two microwaves, some cabinets, a sink, multiple tables with chairs, sofas to lounge on, and two televisions spaced far enough away from each other to not distract listeners too much. The residents' club is mostly carpeted, while the kitchen-like area is tiled. Vending machines are dotted generously within the community amenities building in almost every room, selling snacks and beverages and more. The community amenity building also has free wireless internet, a payment terminal for those who don't do automatic payments, and even a security post though it is mostly used as an information desk.