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Floating on a Wall |
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This floating staircase by designer Jordi Vayreda looks dangerous, but the steps
are made of steel welded to a thick beam inside the wall. The
top of the wall can be used as a handrail for the upper half of
the staircase. See more pictures and an explanation here. |
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Hanging Spirals |
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This design makes sweeping under the stairs easy!
A hanging double spiral staircase is part of the Didden Village project in Rotterdam. There are
two such staircases; the other is a single
spiral. |
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Bookshelf Stairs |
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Levitate Architects of London designed this
bookshelf staircase to combine storage space
with access to a loft bedroom. The skylight above provides
enough daylight to read a book while you sit on the
stairs! |
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Staircase Drawers |
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Another way to use stairs for extra storage is to
put drawers in the risers. That’s a lot of
drawers. When this design went around the internet, everyone
loved it, but all I could think of was how my kids tend to leave
drawers open, and how easy it would be to trip over one that was
left even the slightest bit ajar. |
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Alternating Stairs |
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Gabriella Gustafson and Mattias Ståhlbom of TAF
designed this unusual staircase for a private residence in
Stockholm, Sweden. The alternating stair design takes up much
less room than conventional stairs, but you cannot rush up or
down without thinking about where you put your
feet! |
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Step Up, Slide Down |
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Entrepreneur Scott Jones built a spiral staircase
combined with a slide for his home. The mahogany slide took 15 months
to build, and the spiral staircase was added
afterward. |
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The Stairway as Art |
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Stairs to Nowhere |
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The Winchester
Mystery House in San Jose, California, was built by Sarah L.
Winchester, widow of the famous gun maker. The 160-room house was
under constant construction for 38 years, until Winchester’s death
in 1922. She believed that the house was haunted by the spirits of those killed by Winchester
rifles, and only constant building would keep them from taking her
life. One of the many strange features of the house is this
staircase that leads straight to the ceiling! |
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The Miraculous Staircase |
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The helix staircase at Sisters of Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico has
legendary roots. The story goes that the chapel was built without
access to the choir loft. There was no room for a normal staircase,
so the sisters prayed to St. Joseph (the carpenter) for a solution.
A mysterious man arrived, looking for work, and built the spiral
staircase without a center support pole. He then left without being
paid. The nuns believed the stranger to be St. Joseph himself.
Later evidence points to the staircase as the work of French
woodworker Francois-Jean Rochas. Some say the staircase
is a miracle since it has no visible means of support, while others
say the support is there, it’s just hidden from view. |
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Memorial Stairs |
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The Survivor’s Staircase was the only part of the World
Trade Center left standing above ground after the destruction of
September 11, 2001. The staircase was recently moved for the second time this year, as
construction of the World Trade Center Memorial and Museum
continues. It will be installed as part of the memorial, scheduled
to be completed in 2012. Image by Phillip Ritz. |