The Modern Stairway

Stairs can be much more than just a way up or down, and modern design has broken away from the old closed staircases lined with portraits of relatives. They now are a major architectural highlight within a home design, affecting sightlines and views, creating drama, and contributing to the overall lightness and floating quality of a house. From Marc’s point of view – they also must be beautiful. This highly crafted feature of his work is one of the most complex elements in the construction. All trades meet at the stairs; engineers, steel, glass, finish carpenters, and more, all have to be successfully coordinated by the architect and project manager, within this relatively small area of square footage.

Innovative stair designs are confined not only by space and the needs of the client, but by strict building and safety codes as well, and some of the wow inducing stairs seen on Pinterest are probably not in legal use in actual homes, or are digital-only designs.

The central staircase at our Serenity house in Indian Wells, California near Palm Springs, moves through the open volume space, connecting upper and lower levels (photos 1-3). These “floating” stairs usually have no risers, which allows more natural light to encompass the area; the weightless effect is also achieved using safety banisters of thick shatterproof glass.

The stairs at our Laurel Way project in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles (photos 4-5) exhibit the cantilever - each tread is anchored deep into one wall, and the spiral staircase was designed for the guest bedroom’s private entrance.

At Bundy Drive in Brentwood, Los Angeles, the modern staircase follows a multi-story living green wall, and ends in an indoor cactus garden (last photo)

So, within the laws of physics (and the laws of your county) there are many creative opportunities in both design and materials for the evolution of this ancient method of ascension, the stair.