Stairs - First attempt

If the building is to act as both a showroom and a workshop, then there needs to be some kind of demarcation between the two spaces. One way to achieve this is to simply have the two areas on different levels, connected by a flight of stairs. This affords an interesting opportunity to produce a unique and impressive set of stairs, by which the client can be introduced to the wares on offer, creating a first impression like no other.

I wanted to try and create a set of stairs in the deconstructivist style, to which my initial design seemingly belonged. To that end, I set about drawing a stairway with jagged edges, lined with sharp, irregular polygons in an allusion to the buildings outside shape.

I toyed with the idea of having each step separate from each other, however I decided that this clashed with the continuous form of the, for want of a better word, banister. I also determined that I wanted the path up the stairs to continue, and to bridge the atrium, creating a dramatic central space.

With the layout of the space more or less formalised, I set about deciding how to produce a model of the stairs themselves. I realised I could make the jagged bannister by simply combining a series of pre-made polygons at varying angles and positions, to try and create the effect I wanted.

This represents the first attempt to model these stairs, and I was not as satisfied with the result as I hoped to be.

The effect wasn't as pronounced as I had wanted, and the conventional steps felt out of place with the anarchic trimming. It was obvious that a redesign was required.

Incidentally, the most successful part of the design was the underside, which was covered with a distorted plane, much like an un-ironed shirt. I decided to try and produce the entire stairway in this material. The difficulty was in producing a surface that somehow looked natural, as if the material naturally assumed that shape, and not contrived and over-designed.