Lifeguard tower building type?

[NeatNit]

SC asked me what kind of building this is: https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1067695950

This is a lifeguard tower, built and designed solely for this purpose, and I found no option that feels right. Currently it's tagged: building=yes; emergency=lifeguard.

Photo:

This is most likely an OSM Wiki issue, not a StreetComplete issue, but I think posting it here will be the most helpful.

Should it even have a building tag? It's certainly a building, but the wiki page for emergency=lifeguard and related pages don't specify how (or whether) to select the building tag. The closest option I could see on SC is "hut", which feels wrong. I didn't see anything like "watchtower" - which even that wouldn't feel quite correct.

• What should a StreetComplete user answer here?
• What should the wiki say about this?
• Should SC even ask this question?

[westnordost]

Well, of course StreetComplete cannot offer every single possible building type that exists in its UI, so that is why you can leave a note if you do not find anything fitting so people could discuss whether to just set building=lifeguard_tower or something.

However, what I'll also do is to not ask for the building type for buildings that have emergency=* tagged. Thanks for the hint.

[peternewman]

However, what I'll also do is to not ask for the building type for buildings that have emergency=* tagged. Thanks for the hint.

Won't that potentially preclude people from tagging fire stations and hospitals in future?

[matkoniecz]

Only if poorly tagged as the same object as a building

[mnalis]

Won't that potentially preclude people from tagging fire stations and hospitals in future?

Well, as far as I know, people were never able to tag fire stations (i.e. amenity=fire_station) or hospitals (i.e. amenity=hospital or healthcare=hospital) using StreetComplete anyway (although it would've been nice if Shops overlay was renamed & extended to allow people to do that, instead of leaving notes).

What they could've tagged is that architectural type of specific building resembles architectural type of common fire station or a hospital (regardless of what that building is actually being used for) - which is AFAICT hardly used by any data consumer except maybe some advanced 3D renderers (and StreetComplete itself so it doesn't ask address quests on e.g. sheds).

IOW, that building type information, even when recorded, certainly wouldn't (shouldn't) be used by router in your mobile app routing you to nearest hospital or anything like that.