Circulation Notice: Stair Design Gets People Talking
Learning Objectives:
- Identify and recognize the necessary and building code-related characteristics of stairs for safe vertical circulation.
- Investigate the design potential and innovative opportunities to create gathering spaces within buildings using stairways while maintaining fire safety.
- Assess the ability of stairs to act as a design focal point or feature within the context of the larger building including smoke evacuated atriums.
- Explore the ways that stairs can be designed as an artistic element in their own right within a building and still meet structural and code requirements.
Credits:
Interior stairs are a common element in any multistory building. Beyond meeting basic requirements for pedestrian circulation they must also meet the full array of code requirements for safety and public welfare. But once these conditions are mastered, architects can configure stairs in such a way that they transcend their circulation function and become truly unique and appealing features in their own right.
Vertical Circulation—Connecting People Not Just Floor Levels
We often think of the basic purpose of stairs as connecting vertical floor levels in a building. Indeed, building codes require such stairs for safe passage out of a building and dictate minimum requirements to achieve that safety in terms of size, details, enclosure, the presence of guardrails and handrails. While all of these things are clearly important and deserve proper attention, the real day-to-day use of stairs can be to make it easy for people to connect to other people within a building, not just creating a floor by floor exiting path. Three buildings in particular that have taken this approach are great examples of using stairs to make people feel more connected to each other.
The New York Times Building
Owners: The New York Times Company New York, NY
Forest City Ratner Companies Brooklyn, NY
Developer: Forest City Ratner Companies Brooklyn, NY
Architects: Renzo Piano Building Workshop Paris, France
FXFowle Architects, PC New York, NY
Structural Engineer: The Thornton Tomasetti Group, Inc. New York, NY
General Contractor: AMEC, New York NY
Structural Steel Erector: DCM Erectors, Inc. New York, NY
Miscellaneous Steel Fabricators and Erectors: Empire City Iron Works
Long Island City, NY; Skyline Steel Corp. Brooklyn, NY
Photo © Tex Jernigan
The uncoiled stair profiles are expressed on the exterior of the New School University Center and are equally inviting on the interior as a place to gather (see page 3 for project details).
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