Mastery levels

Rep­re­sent­ing a work of art, the stair­case returned to the city apart­ment and pri­vate coun­try house. What are the prin­ci­ples of its archi­tec­ture, how can it sur­prise and how much will it cost the cus­tomer?

Marches, circles and screws

Today, the arrange­ment of inter­nal stairs is of inter­est to many: an indi­vid­ual devel­op­er who wants to “have his own opin­ion” in a dia­logue with an archi­tect and builders; the buy­er of lux­u­ry two-lev­el apart­ments of “high com­fort”; the own­er of an old apart­ment on the top floor, who decid­ed to build an attic; the own­er of two apart­ments locat­ed one above the oth­er, who dreams of com­bin­ing them into a com­mon res­i­den­tial com­plex; but also to every­one else who is curi­ous.

Of the huge num­ber of types and types, we first of all con­sid­er the main and aux­il­iary inter­nal stairs with a steep­ness of 30–45 — at least for the rea­son that they are the most “trav­el­ling” and are often per­ceived as vis­it­ing cards of a house or apart­ment.

Stairs inside the house are march­ing, cir­cu­lar and spi­ral. Designs of rec­tan­gu­lar shapes are made one‑, two, — less often — three-flight. The march can be straight, bro­ken, curvi­lin­ear. At its begin­ning and end, as well as at the turn­ing points, land­ings are arranged for rest dur­ing ascent and descent — usu­al­ly square, rec­tan­gu­lar or semi­cir­cu­lar in shape. If the stairs from the plat­form diverge into two flights, they say about it that it has two branch­es. It is called through if the light­ing goes through the span between march­es along the entire height, and open if the out­er side (out­er cheek) does not adjoin the wall.

Cir­cu­lar and spi­ral stair­cas­es, which per­form aux­il­iary func­tions in the house, are often the same works of art as the main ones (front doors). Their steep­ness is with­in 30–75. Rest areas are not pro­vid­ed here. Mov­ing on steps with treads of dif­fer­ent widths can be prob­lem­at­ic for the elder­ly, young chil­dren, and the dis­abled.

Cir­cu­lar is struc­tural­ly dif­fer­ent from screw: the first has a round shaft in the mid­dle, the sec­ond is mount­ed on a sup­port col­umn (cen­tral sup­port).

We will not dwell on spe­cial-pur­pose lad­ders — fire, cel­lar, attic — today. High-qual­i­ty stairs are not only designed and man­u­fac­tured accord­ing to indi­vid­ual orders, but also pur­chased ready-made in spe­cial­ized stores (if the ceil­ing height and the dimen­sions of the open­ing in the ceil­ing com­ply with accept­ed stan­dards).

From baluster to stringer

The art of an archi­tect lies in the fact that even the largest and heav­i­est stair­case cre­at­ed by him looks ele­gant, light and airy. Move­ment on it should be pleas­ant and not dan­ger­ous. Aes­thet­ic appear­ance and struc­tur­al strength are achieved in var­i­ous ways.

Accord­ing to the method of attach­ing the steps to the base, stairs are dis­tin­guished on stringers and bow­strings, on bolts (string­less, can­tilever, hang­ing), on a sup­port col­umn, mono­lith­ic.

Both mid-flight and cir­cu­lar stairs can be assem­bled on a cen­tral steel or con­crete, as well as on a steel hinged stringer. The lat­ter makes it pos­si­ble to direct the stroke at the required angle. The design and method of fas­ten­ing the steps are deter­mined based on the archi­tec­t’s intent, gen­er­al pur­pose and con­struc­tion sit­u­a­tion. If the room is spa­cious and there are no restric­tions in its lay­out, it is most con­ve­nient to have a mid-flight stair­case on wood­en or steel stringers. A march on a steel cen­ter stringer or hinged stringer is good where there are prob­lems with fix­ing to floors and walls (or in accor­dance with design require­ments). You can facil­i­tate the design by com­plete­ly remov­ing the mas­sive guides. In this case, a march­ing or march­ing-spi­ral stair­case on the bolts is prefer­able. For per­ma­nent build­ings, a mono­lith­ic struc­ture of any type can be cast under pro­duc­tion con­di­tions from pre­stressed con­crete and lined for beau­ty with wood or dec­o­ra­tive stone at the instal­la­tion site.

Steps are the main part of the stairs. Depend­ing on the shape, they are straight, straight beveled, run­ning and arched. Their num­ber in the march should be at least three and no more than 18. These num­bers are the result of a long study of the bio­me­chan­ics of walk­ing and human ener­gy con­sump­tion depend­ing on the slope and the total num­ber of steps on the entire stair­case.

With the most favor­able of all slopes — 30 — the opti­mal dimen­sions of the ris­er and tread are 17 and 29 cm, respec­tive­ly. Increas­ing the step height by 1 mm requires reduc­ing its width by 2 mm. The width of the tread is usu­al­ly made 3–5 cm more than the pro­jec­tion width of the step due to the over­lap of the tread over the ris­er.

The height of the steps of cir­cu­lar and spi­ral stair­cas­es, as a rule, is from 18 to 20 cm, their width, mea­sured along the line of ascent, ranges from 50 to 100 cm. The depth of the steps of a spi­ral stair­case at a dis­tance of 15 cm from the sup­port­ing col­umn should be at least 10 cm. Cut­ting the edge of the steps tan­gen­tial­ly increas­es their width.

Archi­tects design­ing stairs are guid­ed in their work by norms and rules that are not always the same in Rus­sia and Europe. Accord­ing to Euro­pean DIN 4174, there is the fol­low­ing inter­de­pen­dence between the height of the floors and the size of the steps (at present, upon com­mon reflec­tion, the Rus­sians have also rec­og­nized it).

The opti­mal height of the stair­case in the light should be at least 2 m. The min­i­mum width of the march for the move­ment of one per­son along it is 60 cm, 110 cm for two and 190 cm for three. When installing sin­gle-flight stairs, the dis­tance between oppo­site walls is at least 110 cm.

The height of the handrail (mea­sured ver­ti­cal­ly from the tread to its top) is at least 90 cm. The handrail for chil­dren is made at a height of about 60 cm.

The nar­row­est spi­ral stair­case with a march width of 50 cm or more can be built with a span of 140 cm or more in diam­e­ter. It is used only as an aux­il­iary one. At the main spi­ral stair­case, the march width is at least 80 cm, and the span diam­e­ter is from 200 cm. There is an opin­ion that the spi­ral stair­case saves space. This is true only with a floor height of 3 m or more, since in this case the mid-flight struc­ture will require the con­struc­tion of an inter­me­di­ate plat­form and its rota­tion in space.

Wood, metal or concrete?

It is unlike­ly that any­one will argue with the fact that the stair­case in the house is a struc­ture-form­ing archi­tec­tur­al and artis­tic ele­ment. Often it is a style dom­i­nant and the main piece of fur­ni­ture. If the archi­tect and design­ers have ignored her, the decor of the house does not look com­plete and com­plete. Using the stairs, you can orga­nize the zon­ing of one or more rooms at dif­fer­ent lev­els of the build­ing. It allows you to view the house and its inte­ri­ors in space from dif­fer­ent points. If the stair­case is a work of art in itself, fur­nish­ings and art objects of sim­i­lar artis­tic mer­it are grouped around.

In a prop­er­ly designed inte­ri­or, it should not look styl­is­ti­cal­ly for­eign. If the design is con­ceived in a clas­si­cal spir­it, ele­ments of the clas­sics should also pre­vail around it. And vice ver­sa. Moder­ni­ty allows some­what greater lib­er­ties, but even in this case, for­eign objects and dec­o­ra­tion ele­ments, inher­ent, for exam­ple, in high-tech style, can­not coex­ist with the stairs. On the oth­er hand, the style of inte­ri­ors at dif­fer­ent lev­els of the house can be dif­fer­ent. In such cas­es, the stair­case pro­vides a smooth tran­si­tion from one style envi­ron­ment to anoth­er. This prob­lem is solved by means of light­ing, col­or, the for­ma­tion of a sub­ject line of land­ings, etc.

Where does the decor of a wood­en stair­case begin? First of all, with the choice of wood of the desired species and tex­ture for load-bear­ing struc­tures and fin­ish­es. Both soft breeds (pine, spruce, larch) and hard ones (oak, beech, maple, ash, cedar) are used. The lat­ter is prefer­able, but also more expen­sive. Fin­ish­ing can be made from exot­ic wood species — wal­nut, teak, cher­ry, cypress, iroko, mogano, arau­caria, etc. For bet­ter tex­ture man­i­fes­ta­tion and for opti­mal com­bi­na­tion with fur­ni­ture and par­quet, cer­tain ton­ing and var­nish­es are used. In load-bear­ing struc­tures, it is impos­si­ble to com­bine dif­fer­ent types of wood that have an unequal coef­fi­cient of fiber expan­sion with changes in humid­i­ty, while over­head ele­ments of cladding of var­i­ous types of wood are quite pos­si­ble.

Depend­ing on the style, the appro­pri­ate design is select­ed. For exam­ple, stairs on tra­di­tion­al bow­strings and kosour are clos­er to the clas­sics, to mod­ern ones — besk­our­less, self-sup­port­ing struc­tures. You should always remem­ber that you can not give pref­er­ence to a dec­o­ra­tive solu­tion to the detri­ment of the nec­es­sary func­tions. It is dan­ger­ous to neglect the engi­neer­ing require­ments for the method of fas­ten­ing: for exam­ple, mount them to unre­li­able frame-type inte­ri­or par­ti­tions.

The decor pos­si­bil­i­ties are extreme­ly diverse. Along with wood, for the man­u­fac­ture of fences and in dec­o­ra­tion, forged, cast, weld­ed struc­tures made of fer­rous and non-fer­rous met­als with var­i­ous types of gal­van­ic coat­ings (up to gild­ing), triplex, acrylic and poly­car­bon­ate glass, crys­tal and ceram­ics, pre­cious rocks, dec­o­ra­tive con­crete. In a word, the stair­case is a unique con­struc­tive and artis­tic ele­ment of the inte­ri­or, which incor­po­rates the most incred­i­ble ideas and solu­tions of the archi­tect.

A cer­tain sub­ject row is asso­ci­at­ed with it in the house. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, paint­ings or graph­ics are hung on the wall along the march­ing stairs: fam­i­ly por­traits or land­scapes, as well as hunt­ing tro­phies and even ancient weapons. Dec­o­ra­tive plant com­po­si­tions can be cre­at­ed on the low­er and upper plat­forms, in nich­es on the walls. The design of the front stairs sug­gests the pres­ence of paired sculp­tures or lamps at the entrance; above, on the plat­forms, — mir­rors. A wide gap between the march­es or the shaft of a cir­cu­lar stair­case should be illu­mi­nat­ed by a chan­de­lier. On the bal­conies and mez­za­nines includ­ed in the stair­case, fur­ni­ture is some­times installed for relax­ation and view­ing con­ve­nience (arm­chairs, a table). The open­ings of heli­cal struc­tures, as a rule, are dec­o­rat­ed only by fin­ish­ing the walls: move­ment along them requires atten­tion, which should not be dis­tract­ed by artis­tic objects.

Designed and built accord­ing to the rules of high archi­tec­ture and design, the stair­case lasts for cen­turies. Many gen­er­a­tions of the inhab­i­tants of the house and your fam­i­ly will enjoy and admire its beau­ty.

Contact the professionals

The largest Euro­pean man­u­fac­tur­ers of lad­ders of var­i­ous class­es are rep­re­sent­ed on the Russ­ian mar­ket — from elite to mass series prod­ucts. In most cas­es, struc­tures sup­plied from abroad are wood­en, to a less­er extent, met­al with wood or stone cladding, as well as con­crete with gran­ite, mar­ble, ceram­ics, glass, and met­al fin­ish­es.

The list of for­eign man­u­fac­tur­ers sup­ply­ing their prod­ucts to Rus­sia is quite large. All of them are rep­re­sent­ed in Rus­sia by deal­ers who, along with the sale of import­ed stairs of mass series, are engaged in design and instal­la­tion work: “INTERIOR ACADEMY”, “VITONIT-MK”, “CANADIAN CEDAR”, “LADDER”, “SM-SQUARE”, “HOB­bit”, AS-ART, KLAFS, UNION GROUP, etc. Russ­ian man­u­fac­tur­ers are try­ing to com­pete with them — KLEN LEST LLC , CJSC “LESKOSTROY‑M”, JSC “ROBOS +”, “TPK “RUTENA”, LLC “STUDIOROOM”, “Ch.P.S.” (Moscow), whose prod­ucts are cheap­er. Domes­tic pro­duc­tion of met­al stair rail­ings has been estab­lished (EKHPO VEL LLP, KRISTALL SK LLC, RUSSKAYA KOVKA LLC, etc.).

Spe­cial­ized firms not only cre­ate author’s projects, the style and design of which are indi­vid­ual and inim­itable, but also work with stan­dard prod­ucts of mass series. Some stair­cas­es offered in the cat­a­logs of well-known for­eign man­u­fac­tur­ers look no less chic and styl­ish than Mer­cedes or Porsche cars, which, as you know, are also mass-pro­duced. Suf­fice it to men­tion the lux­u­ri­ous spi­ral stair­cas­es of the Vania and Delta 2/af mod­els by ALFA SCALE, the ele­gant and airy designs on the rails of the Design and Har­mo­ny series by Ke.

It’s time to clar­i­fy how much the pos­ses­sion of a stair­case divo will result in for the cus­tomer. We note right away: this plea­sure is not cheap. If the cus­tomer’s appetites are lim­it­ed by a sim­ple desire to move from one lev­el to anoth­er, a sin­gle-flight stair­case made of import­ed sol­id pine, up to 3 m high and 1 m wide, will “pull” three thou­sand dol­lars. If you do the same from oak and with a claim to a work of art, the price will increase to sev­en thou­sand. Import­ed screw screws with a diam­e­ter of 140 cm and a height of 3 m cost from two and a half (met­al) to four (wood) thou­sand dol­lars. High-qual­i­ty Russ­ian-made lad­ders of piece work are expen­sive, like import­ed ones, but domes­tic designs of mass series are half the price. As a rule, there are sev­er­al stairs in a sol­id man­sion, so their total cost, depend­ing on the poten­tial capa­bil­i­ties of the home­own­er, can be sev­er­al tens, in excep­tion­al cas­es — hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars.

The edi­tors would like to thank the LESTVITSA com­pa­ny for their help in prepar­ing the arti­cle.

• Source: Ideas for Your Home Magazine#34

Mate­r­i­al pre­pared

Petr Niko­laev