A house split across two levels. Now one house, solved by one element.
Living space upstairs, entry and bedrooms downstairs. The family crossed between the two constantly, and the house felt like two houses. They wanted them connected without losing living space.
They had considered opening a larger void between the floors, and they did not want to lose the living space that would cost. A full renovation was out of budget.
It was never a floor-area problem. It was a problem of connection, and one element could solve it.
Two strips per tread, anchored top and bottom, pinched at mid-height. The line of pinch points runs at the bisector between the sloping stair and the horizontal ceiling, so each strip bows open above and below it.
Modelled in Rhino and Grasshopper on a 3D scan of the existing stair, with the four-inch opening limit driving the algorithm and the strips' own flexibility carrying the load.
And a screen that filters daylight across the two-story wall behind it, so the shadow pattern changes all day.
The screen encloses the stair void and connects the levels without closing either. During the day it filters light across the far wall, and you climb through the pattern.
The whole renovation they were dreading turned out to be one element, done properly.
Washingtonian Honorable Mention for Detail
Jurors recognised two projects with detail awards. Of this one they wrote that a stair rail can be more than just utilitarian, and that inexpensive poplar trim was used to create a sculptural, two-level screen.
Washingtonian Residential Design Awards
ArchitectureDC, Fine Points
A low-cost material assembled in a way that transforms it beyond its more banal state.
ArchitectureDC, p.85
Just need one thing solved?
The most sculptural object in a house is the one most often treated as plumbing.
Read what makes a good stair →Rather talk it through? Start with one question.
"It looks like a custom commission. It is poplar lattice trim and hardware anyone can buy. The difference is what the geometry knows."Luis Boza · On budget as a design constraint
