Spiral Staircase in a Tight Brick Stairwell
Here is an interesting spiral staircase with an innovative riser that allows the stair to feel open while still performing the function. This is a very simple treatment with the steel complementing the aged brickwork. Purely functional but correct in its application and execution.
The tightness of this space leaves few choices for stair selection. The spiral is basically the only stair that could fit into the space. That is where the spiral staircase comes into it’s own.
It turns around on it’s own space revolving around a central post the stair only uses the width of the tread in space, plus a little room for the handrail, and is basically vertical. The user doesn’t have much foot space on the tread and it really is necessary to walk on the outside hanging onto the handrail for maximum tread space and ease of use.
The spiral staircase is a hard stair to use compared to a gentle circular stair, but it is ideal for tight spaces like this. It is used often to reach mezzanine floors, or secondary apartment spaces, places where there is not a high use of the stair and the space is scarce for a standard stair.
This design shows the wonderful contrast of textures in this stairwell creating a successful interior space. The rustic recycled brick is earthy and breaks up the small space which would otherwise be difficult to decorate. The major problems with the spiral staircase is the tight turning, it is very difficult to carry anything up or down the stair. In this example the treads would be very slippery if they got any moisture on them being steel, and if anything was spilt on the stair, it would be a messy job to clean up. The spiral stair has it’s place in the form of secondary stair but is definitely not suitable as a primary stair or accessible stair. As for sliding down the handrail like we see on the movies – well it sounds like fun, but you might scratch your knees on this one as the space is a little tight.
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