STRANGE STAIRS

"And she's buying a stairway to heaven"
-Led Zeppelin

Stairs and steps are something I tend to take for granted: a way to get up or down, not anything to consider closely. Yet there's a lot of engineering that goes into designing a staircase. At the fancy city hall built in the 1970s here in Salem there is a large plaza that has deep, broad, and very short steps. They look very interesting and Frank Lloyd Wright-y but are very awkward to walk up: the stride is broken up by how short and deep each step is; about four inches tall and two feet deep.

Stairs are supposed to follow a specific proportion: the rise (how tall the step is) plus the run (how deep it is on top) should add up to 17 or 17.5 inches. Yet that cannot simply be a 16" tall step with a 1" deep place to stand, it has to be in proportions that are comfortable to human travel. To make the steps ergonomic, they have to follow a sort of pattern, such as 6" by 11.5" or 8.5" by 9". That's where the city hall steps don't work: they break that rule so they are awkward to walk up and more tiring than normal steps.

Then there are the strange stair cases. Just the usual flight of stairs isn't good enough for some, they have to have something truly unique and unusual. At Toxel.com there's a showcase of unusual and creative staircases that run from the interesting to the bizarre.

One such set is the skateboard deck staircase. While not particularly unique or bizarre in design it is interesting and recognizable without being particularly jarring. The simple wood steps might not be seen as skateboards immediately without the wheels and the paint and decal art. Like many of these designs, there's no railing because it would break up the art, and possibly an arm or neck some dark night.

Another potentially neck breaking staircase is this angled set from Stockholm. Each stair is a triangle when viewed from the top so you can't step in the center. This just seems like a disaster waiting to happen, particularly on some sleepy or drunk night. People fall down ordinary steps enough without being encouraged like this. They certainly look interesting, but the staircase here just seems very impractical.

And if you want to guarantee someone falls in the middle of the night, you can hit the switch on these stairs and they fold neatly into a socket on the wall, leaving the upper area a sudden cliff. I can see where in a cramped apartment it would be nice to tuck away the staircase, when I was in college my engineer room mate came up with a system by which we could raise and lower the loft. During the day the loft was flush against the ceiling and during the night it was lowered into position for sleeping. It won the "best loft" for the dorm and worked well.

Some of the stairs shown are design for design's sake. They aren't especially unusual in terms of stair design but how they are presented is unusual. The box stairs shown first are a pretty basic staircase but the way they are hung makes it look interesting, primarily because of that first missing riser. Hopefully that won't lead to any uncomfortable accidents either. The light wood they used looks good with the white background but I am not sure it works with the more traditional railing shown on the balcony.

The second is this floating staircase concept. While again it looks unusual, it is little more than an ordinary set of stairs with the railing and every third step missing a riser. These do fit into the surroundings well, in fact they look almost Japanese, somehow. I like the simplicity but they do look somewhat unsafe, again. Sometimes art has to give way to practicality.

Then there are the super-practical stairs. Some designers have realized that staircases represent a lot of unused space. Sure, like the office I work in, many have the space beneath stairs as a little oddly-shaped closet. Harry Potter lived under stairs for a few years in the book series. Yet the area is little more than a gap with a doorway rather than any deliberate design. The strange shape limits how the closet area can be used and makes it awkward to get to some objects in the back.

These staircases take that space beneath and even inside stairs, such as this step drawer concept, and makes them each useful. The drawers here will be rather shallow to fit under the steps, but I could see a lot of use for them. Shoes, gloves, scarves, etc, anything you'd want while heading out. If the handles were subtle enough, people may not even be aware the drawers are there, which would make them useful for things you would prefer no one saw out in the open. Just don't yank one out while Johnny is racing down the stairs.

Others decided the side of the stairs make great book cases. I'm mixed on this one. It does work well, but it also seems like spilled things, mud, and dust would get all over the top layer of books. Still, that unused space beneath the stairs can be used to close off a room and yet have some practical value: both sides could have book shelves if the steps make an island in a room.

This is an alternate concept: instead of bookshelves you just make them bare shelves. Obviously nobody is forced to put books into bookshelves. Need space for your collectible plates and "action figures?" Got a collection and nowhere to put it? Don't just throw it under the stairs, display it under the stairs. Again, hats, coats, scarves, shoes, etc could all be put under here.

And finally we get this one. A cramped apartment can be a tough thing for a bibliophile. Between my brother and I we've got hundreds of books and nowhere to put them all. Well this fellow found a way and it does look pretty smart. Also it looks easy to get to all the books, sometimes a problem for ordinary book shelves. The problem is that these shelves are open to foot traffic, so I could easily see them being kicked and scuffed by travel, and given that the stairs apparently reach up to a window or door leading outside, mud and water spattered or drizzled onto them.

Still, despite some flaws, I have to applaud the engineering and creativity that went into these (and the others on the Toxel site which I highly recommend checking out). Even if they aren't exactly practical, they look wonderful and some of them must have been just awful to work out in design and implementation.