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How can this staircase be structurally supported?

Non-ASD Jequitarchitectur

This is for a student project. Can the staircase only be fixed at the top?

 
Jan 23, 17 12:47 pm
chigurh

top and bottom

Jan 23, 17 12:53 pm  · 
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think_again

 unless you introduce gravity to your rendering, you'll never know.

Jan 23, 17 1:05 pm  · 
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Non Sequitur

Maybe.... but you'll have to weigh the pros & cons of a significant increase to the depth of the landing or a few post.

More importantly thou... why the fuk are there horizontal bars where the railing is against a wall? I'd ding that as poor design before considering the less than ideal structural approach.

Jan 23, 17 1:07 pm  · 
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tduds

^Revit railing families are hard.

Jan 23, 17 1:41 pm  · 
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Non Sequitur

^Not really... 

Jan 23, 17 1:43 pm  · 
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toosaturated

Hang it or cantilever from side

Jan 23, 17 1:44 pm  · 
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archanonymous

is the underside of the structure @ landing more than 80" off the floor? if not may as well do posts as you will have a curb and or railing there anyways.

Jan 23, 17 1:54 pm  · 
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tduds

Non: that was the joke, yes.

Jan 23, 17 2:08 pm  · 
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Non Sequitur

Well played.

Jan 23, 17 2:29 pm  · 
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Andrew.Circle

OP: you have gotten good advice from archanonymous and NS. I will add one piece of advice specific to your question. You could always hang the landing from the slab above to keep the stair structure at a minimal depth.

As archanonymous says, in the US, if the underside of the stair structure is below 80", then a barrier needs to be installed to stop occupants from meeting the stair with their face. If a barrier is installed, the generous corridor you are illustrating here is cut down to 3-4' wide. Not great.

NS is right, get rid of the railing along the wall. Looks ridiculous. IMO the worst thing about Revit is what it has done to design education - if the family doesn't exist out of the box, then it doesn't get designed.

Not sure where you are posting from, but if it's the US your guardrail is also deficient. Needs to stop a 4" dia. sphere from passing through it - looks more like an 8" spacing. The lighting doesn't look aligned and it's probably too tightly spaced, unless you are going for that effect.

Other than that, looks good.

Jan 23, 17 2:41 pm  · 
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Non-ASD Jequitarchitectur

Thanks you for the comments everybody!

Jan 23, 17 2:56 pm  · 
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Stairs in ArchiCAD are worse, which I didn't think was possible.

OP, you need some color in there or something. It feels like a soulless corporate building right now. But hey, you might be going for that. 

Jan 23, 17 3:01 pm  · 
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Non-ASD Jequitarchitectur

@Non Sequitur, Shall I get rid of the railing along the wall at all, or just the horizontal parts?

@ Andrew, can you post a link showing the kind of barrier you are suggesting?

@ Josh, I was going for an austere interior.

Jan 23, 17 3:11 pm  · 
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That's fine, but you need the little kick in there somewhere that takes it from bad austere to good austere. Could be something materially or otherwise. Look at how Eero Saarinen and Roche/Dinkeloo use materiality. 

Jan 23, 17 3:13 pm  · 
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Also, 2 stairs for you to look at - both Saarinen works. Look at GM Tech Center and Irwin Union Bank (now Cummins Conference Center).

Jan 23, 17 3:14 pm  · 
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Non Sequitur

Let's not all forget that there will be one helluva ugly sprinkler head and pipe under that landing too.

Jan 23, 17 3:29 pm  · 
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On the fence

Add columns.  Trust me, they will actually support it.

Jan 23, 17 3:55 pm  · 
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Andrew.Circle

Good point Josh. Williams / Tsien do little kicks well with the woven / felt tapestries or the bold, saturated ceramic tile walls. Kahn and his wood or stone inlays in concrete are another approach. Another way to take this project to 'good' austere is the landscaping - if there was a lot of lush vegetation directly through the curtain wall that would be helpful. A parking lot, not so much.

OP, the barrier can be anything from a small low railing to fixed benches. Basically you are just creating a barrier so blind or inattentive persons don't brain themselves. Architects have handled this condition with a solid plinth the stair springs from. I've seen the creation of a solid volume under the stair too, which is the antithesis of what I think you are attempting to create. The worst solution is the low floor mounted railing that screams I'm an afterthought.

The only reason I added to archanonymous's comment was because your landing extends so far over the circulation space, it will make a large impact. A large enough impact you could make a statement with the solution.

Jan 23, 17 4:54 pm  · 
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The way Billie Tsien speaks about their projects is fascinating. Saw a lecture of hers a few years back.

Zumthor does austere very well too - his new Allmannajuvet Museum does the kick with light and views. It's already on my list for the next time I go to Norway. So is the Witches monument up on the Northern coast of Norway.

Jan 23, 17 5:05 pm  · 
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SneakyPete

It can be pretty minimal and still be considered a barrier...

 

Jan 23, 17 5:11 pm  · 
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mightyaa

Basic Physics...  What you are going to take a look at is transitioning a vertical force into a lateral one.  Think of it as a whole, so if you looked at a side profile it will want to tip over.  So, the top will be a tension connection (pullout), and the bottom will be a compression (push in).  The connections will need to resist moment, and the tricky one is the inside stringer at the landing... normally the stringer depth below the tread will be thicker than you have shown.

Basically just follow the load path and you might find some creative solution (like the upper stringers will be in tension, therefore could be smaller, and the bottom stringers in compression)... play on materials could be a concrete stringer and landing at the base (compression elements) held in place by a thin steel you use like a cable to keep it from falling down (steel for tension elements).

Jan 23, 17 7:56 pm  · 
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your conscience

depends where is the site

Jan 23, 17 8:15 pm  · 
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randomised

Helium balloons.

Jan 24, 17 3:28 am  · 
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Zbig

Or go full Niemeyer. Of course, codes would require railings.

Jan 24, 17 8:56 am  · 
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randomised

"Of course, codes would require railings."

Depends on the country, here a recent example from Japan, no railing...

Jan 24, 17 9:36 am  · 
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tduds

That stair case is my nightmare.

Jan 24, 17 11:53 am  · 
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mightyaa

Learn to label properly: It's a "floor to ceiling, spiraling, staggered, vertical shelf unit".  An art piece really :P

Jan 24, 17 2:26 pm  · 
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Andrew.Circle

Josh Mings - I went to a Billie Tsien lecture as a freshman in college. I was so young and stupid I barely listened and didn't really appreciate the projected images of their work. It took going to the Folk Art Museum my sophomore year to even begin to understand what was going on. I kick myself for not being more attentive, but I guess that's part of learning. Would love to see her lecture again.

I agree that Zumthor's use of shadow and light add separates his work from other 'austere' architecture, but his work has so much material richness I don't know if the word austere really describes his projects. TWBTA uses a lot of cast in place concrete or even CMU and plays off that; I can't think of many Zumthor projects where he doesn't use a material that holds up by itself, even without the light. The interior of Kunsthaus Bregenz is austere, but most others aren't - the stone, or brick, or plaster, etc is too magnificent to look at. Can one construct a materially rich, but still austere architecture? Formally austere, but luxurious in material - Barcelona Pavilion comes to mind. Is that austere?

Jan 24, 17 4:59 pm  · 
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Speaking of the barrier, I saw a photo of a project (somewhere in the US, I believe) of stair along a glass exterior wall. The stones in the landscaping outside were brought inside on the underside of the stair, presumably to act as a barrier as well as to blur the line between interior and exterior. It was one of the more elegant solutions I've seen to the under-stair barrier requirement that I've seen, but I'm wondering if it seems like something that would fly in most US jurisdictions?

Jan 31, 17 2:15 pm  · 
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go do it

how about a nice bench for a barrier?

Never mind some perv would turn it into an upskirt photography studio

Jan 31, 17 4:39 pm  · 
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Non Sequitur

^I've tried that before... and it did'nt work. We got complaints on day one and had to put in a stainless steel guard.

Jan 31, 17 4:50 pm  · 
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