A Dynamic Impact of Stairs on the Workplace Experience

Stairs are seductive, beautiful, and yet highly functional piece of architecture that has the artistic ability to unify spaces and people.  Like M.C. Escher’s famous work, ‘Relativity’ (I had a photocopy framed in my bedroom as a child), I love the sense of discovery it brings when walking up (or down) to reveal the next level beyond.   

A Vertical Experience

With our eyes fixated on the anticipation of what space lies at the end of the stairs, the slower cadence of the steps, and the feel of sliding our hand along the handrail we connect with an emotional experience through the architecture.   This is especially true for spaces like homes, restaurants, retail, museums, or galleries, but this experiential quality is not often associated with our workplaces. 

A beautifully designed and functionally located stair not only provides aesthetic value to the office space, but activates connections socially between people, culturally for company expansion, employee wellbeing, or an experiential journey for visitors.  For any workplace that operates as a vertical campus across multiple floors, these are meaningful factors for the business that should be considered in the design.

A Spatial Nexus

For workplaces that span across multiple floors, a visible and convenient stair, located at a central nexus point, is essential for ease of connecting colleagues and business teams.  There is a general rule of thumb that people will walk up one and down two flights of stairs, but not more.  Without a stair and it becomes an inconvenience to meet with a colleague just one floor away. 

A central stair allows the flexibility for groups or teams to grow vertically, and not be landlocked on a single floor.  Business departments would have the advantage of multiple adjacencies to each other, allowing for ease of communication.  In a fast-paced business market, by fostering more changes for colleagues to cross paths, convenient communication can be paramount.

Coincidental Collisions

The Allen Curve, by Thomas Allen, a professor at MIT School of Management, studies the relationship between physical distance and employee interaction.  It reveals there is a strong negative correlation between physical proximity and the frequency of communication between people.  Essentially means, that if your colleague is beyond 50 meters away, they may as well be in a separate building.

Open and visibly accessible stairs in the workplace dramatically increase the likelihood of people building social connections, becoming friends, or simply sparking conversations about work.  It optimizes the energy of the office.

Design: Stairs with Experience

 With a small building floor plate, it became necessary to locate adjacent spaces vertically throughout the building, such as meeting rooms, labs, and the showroom.  This medical-tech corporate experience center uses the stair to bridge these connections while creating a dynamic feeling of being lifted in the main atrium.  

Without using any vertical or horizontal support bracing, the 4-floor steel structure is completely cantilevered from the core wall and grounded by a reinforced steel and concrete base.  

Each landing is canted at a 15-degree angle from the previous, and no two stair flights are aligned with each other.  This was designed to allow people taking the stairs to catch a glimpse of each other.  The central stringer and open riser design enhance the cantilevered effect for each step.  It is a function, yet playful, and sculptural architectural expression that delivers an emotional, memorable experience for visitors and employees alike.

Design: Stairs as a Journey

As an essential curated element for visitors to traverse vertically through the building, the stair connects important spaces for visitors and employees to interact and potentially collaborate on ideas.  For this confidential corporate workplace, the stair also serves an important function to connect teams that need access and adjacencies to key spaces on multiple floors.  The area around the stair on each floor acts as a communication nexus by providing meeting spaces, an open pantry, and lounge discussion areas.

Details

The “floating” structure provided the effect of weightlessness for users as they traverse vertically between spaces within the atrium. With a central stringer, each flight of steps and landing is completely cantilevered from the reinforced core wall, while each open riser step is illuminated and cantilevered from the stringer. The entire stair was fabricated to appear as light and effortless as possible.