The Golden Westlake project called for very compacted and closely-spaced villas. Our goal was to create a bigger sense of space, and to give the homes a locally-inspired context. 
Typically, staircases are vertically integrated into one place in the house. In Golden Westlake, however, we designed the internal staircases to circumambulate the house by changing their positions on every successive floor.
Spatially, this makes the house seem longer and larger, as one actually moves through all the different cardinal orientations of the house. Each length of stairs also has a special feature at its end, a specific view or a specific landing, that makes each one unique to that point in the house.
The manipulation of path in relationship to environment is inspired by the design of a traditional Chinese garden, which guides a visitor on a carefully planned journey, with a destination at the end of each path.
The sense of an upwards circumambulatory journey also finds a referent in Buddhist ritual architecture. In Borobodur, for example, the life story of Buddha is written as visitors pass through the building, making their way to the top.
By looking at both models we have tried to make a completely modern house, in a completely modern context, and reinterpret it in a local way. In this way, a staircase can change the meaning of the house.