Angular attic staircase -- cheap, steep, and does the trick

This low-cost attic staircase was built out of stacked pine boxes, filling a space too narrow for regular steps. Plenty steep but damned cool. Link (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

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lava

Alternating tread stair – you can get them for industrial use:

http://www.lapeyrestair.com/products/atsAll.aspx

Codes in the US don’t allow such things. You belly-ache about flying today – building yourself a house has been much worse for years. All administered by small local governments, designed to save us from ourselves. Builders need to be regulated. Home owners should have more freedom to do what they want in their own homes if they can build it themselves.
Waldo Jaquith

Xiguli is quite right — Monticello has precisely the same thing. Only built 200 years ago, and designed by Jefferson.
webted

I hope there’s a cyanide pill or a pistol stored at the base.

I notice there’s no light switch top or bottom, either…

Most people who have problems with building codes don’t understand them. They’re pretty much a minimal “new construction” standard.

As a homeowner, you’re welcome to rig up electrocuting showers, incineration chamber basement bedrooms, sewage gas spewing sinks and toxic mold cultivating additions. You just don’t have the right to recover insurance damages when these “improvements” reap what they’ve sown.
Takuan

Building codes are dictated by banks, not governments.

How about conventional ship’s ladder staircases? With hand rails.
Xiguli

@Waldo (#16):

Thanks, I like to be right. Except that I didn’t mention Monticello. That would be Ankh.
hanswurst0815

Similar attempt, probably more expensive: http://www.do-it-treppen.ch/dietreppen/karina.html
Anonymous

Building codes are determined by state law, and Mass building code allows for such stairs. The design pre-date Jefferson.
Haroun

A building code requiring handrails in this situation would do much to prevent easily preventable falls & the very real difficulty of another member of the family complaining endlessly about hand prints from folks descending the staircase & holding onto the walls for balance.
All the requirements dictated by building codes have been pushed through more from an insurance angle rather than a bank angle. Figure out why buildings collapse, flood, or burn, & build the next time so whatever the cause was it so it doesn’t fail catastrophically, more than occasionally with a loss of life. I like building codes, having lived in several places w/uninspected or grandfathered doors or stairs that would give me a nasty knock of the head if I didn’t duck. & I’m only 5’10″.
Rider

my grandparents had staircase like that it was deadly, seriously I think every single family member had taken at least 2 trips down it.
ankh

I checked; Monticello’s second and third floors are off limits by act of the local fire marshal, presumably because getting people down their stairs in a hurry would be a big problem.

There is a partial tour of the building online.

Don’t miss the tulip poplar trees next to the building. That’s a grownup tree. Few people in the US have ever seen one.
Takuan

I suppose liability is significant, but I was referring to the tyranny of the marketplace. You can’t get financing to build creatively since some drone thinks “no one will buy it”
Toby

Handrails do seem like a must, though they’d narrow the space unless they were recessed into the walls on either side. I wonder about the overall space saving versus a small spiral staircase (which do meet code under some circumstances in the US, I believe).
powermatic

“Cheap”? “Low-cost”? “Huh”?

Words that can only come from a ball-busting homeowner who assumes that because it’s different, it must be easier to build.

I see a lot of labor inherent in the design, and of course it’s uniqueness would add head-scratching time for the carpenter doing the work.

I’m not saying I don’t like the looks-I do. Obviously, the whole place has that clean, Scandinavian, don’t-even-think-about-kids look. But the details (no baseboards, but flooring must be installed net cut/tight fit) adds to the cost, not the other way around.
cha0tic

I drink too much to have stairs like these.
Wareq

Almost every home in Chile has stairs like these, especially down south where most people are 5’0″, 5’6″ and have proportionally tiny feet. With my size 12s, they might as well have been ladders.
flatfoot

Maybe it doesn’t go anywhere and it is just art.
Gilbert Wham

I had a flat w/something similar – each stair had a cut-out on opposing sides; kind of like the letters d & plaid flat & stacked, so the steps could overlap eac other and you could still climb them. So long as you started off on the right foot, you were fine. Confused the hell out of first-time guests though.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

I have to agree with Webted (38) on building codes vs. “electrocuting showers, incineration chamber basement bedrooms, sewage gas spewing sinks and toxic mold cultivating additions.” To get some idea, check out This Old House‘s collections of home inspection nightmares: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Also, Consumer Reports on the high incidence of defects that buyers are finding in newer homes.

As Webted says, you can build whatever you want, but if it doesn’t pass inspection, you can’t get it insured. Look at the pictures on the TOH site and you’ll see why. Most homes aren’t designed or built by the people who wind up living in them. They’re built by construction companies that are looking to make a profit. Building codes and required inspections aren’t there to stifle creativity. They exist to make sure the people who build your home do a passably good job.

I’ve lived in non-code buildings. They’re not creative. They’re scary.
rosdoc

Reminds me of a staircase in a loft in Toronto that had no railing. Falling off the edge was no fun!
adamrice

The more conventional-looking equivalent to this is called a “monk’s ladder.” My wife had one in her apartment when we met. Takes a little getting used to, but not a problem after that. Here’s an example of a prefab unit.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

That’s what you said last round. I did read it.

So, we should condemn building codes, and the people who enforce them, because one time in a hundred (a thousand?), they disallow something clever and creative? Now I’m going to have to repeat one of my own points: most of the time, what they’re disallowing is care-for-nobody builders’ improper ducting, fire-hazard wiring, missing moisture barriers, missing insulation, inadequate structural supports, drainage that doesn’t …

“Creative” covers a lot of different circumstances. “Creative architecture” is fine. “Creative cost-cutting where the buyer can’t see it,” not so good. Can you really not see why insurers, as a rule, won’t issue policies on buildings that aren’t up to code?
Anonymous

I call irrational exuberance: spinning those as stacked inexpensive pine boxes is just plain silly.

Those would be -extremely- difficult and expensive to build. The concept is simple, however the execution would be very, very difficult.

Kronas to Dollars those are CGI stairs. Notice that there is no lens distortion in either of the perspective images where the stairs are involved. You can also see quite a bit of photo editing — smudging in the view from above, a completely homogeneous plane of neutral gray in the view from below just left of the oven (notice the authentic reflection on the bottom of the beam crossing the room beyond).

There are no traces of the recording process in the images of the stairs (you cryptography types should be all over this). I would wager that most of you felt as though something was slightly wrong when looking at these images, however the nice design, attention to detail (including props) managed to distract you from the too-smooth rendering. Look closely, you’ll see more.

In the future keep an eye out for more more virtual projects used as portfolio filler by young design firms. Indeed, looking through this firm’s portfolio, I’d say that it is mostly simulation.

If you build a project in the middle of the woods, and no one is on the same continent to see it — unless you document it, it may as well not exist.

Simulating the end product (images being far more important than the physical project) makes things far simpler. No client, no budget: no problem. Bonus: no building inspector to fall down the stairs or bark their shin on the improbably sharp tread nosing.

No wet blanket intended here – I work in the field and had to call this one since nobody else did.
Takuan

Creative building does not have to be stupid building. Arbitrary one-size-fits-all codes (frequently administered by clerks rather than carpenters) are a Procrustean Bed that dreams are sacrificed on…. (hah! no Metaphor Inspectors!)
dacker

I’ve experienced alternating-tread staircases in several old farmhouses where I grew up in Vermont. I clearly remember my first experience with one: You climb very quickly as you step on the treads, then you are scared $!+less when you first try to go down. I remember going down backwards the first couple times because it’s so steep!
cellocgw

very nice looking– similar in concept to staircases on some military ships. There, each rung is half-width and offset from its neighbors. Saves space but you better start off on the right foot ^_^
eclectro

There is a reason why there are building codes. Stairs are very innocent looking, but are actually very dangerous. My mother fell down one in the home and shattered her arem. I have stumbled on many of them myself.
This staircase is very neat, and I think people should be able to build them. But if someone else falls on them, remember there is more than one ambulance chasing attorney around that wants to make trouble for your life.
Not trying to spoil the party, but always remember there are two sides to the equation.
blargumentor

Sure would hurt to fall down that set of stairs…
Cory Doctorow

Rosdoc@24: My mother folks, she’s here all week!

For the record, the loft staircase in Toronto that I fell off of and concussed myself with was much wider than that. And we eventually got a railing for it.
AceJohnny

There was a similar staircase in my grandparents’ duplex flat in Paris. It was as #1 describes. I wonder how long the concept has existed: I used to be told my grandfather invented it :)
Anonymous

As a piece of sculpture, it’s fine. But there are such things as building codes – and this wouldn’t pass inspection.
Sam

I wonder if those types of staircases are building code compliant. I wouldn’t bet on it.
Infinite Decay

That looks really cool — but no handrails on a staircase that steep? Scary! I think I’d be nervous about tripping over my own feet and doing an inelegant swan dive to the bottom.

That top-down picture from the linked page actually gives me a bit a vertigo once my brain has time to resolve what angle the pic is actually showing.
Anonymous

Umm… those are not stacked pine boxes. Unless they make boxes with 45 degree corners now.

That’s the kind of staircase that looks a nice and cool until someone dies falling down it and then it just looks haunted and creepy…

Anyways, that looks like a perfect spot for a decent spiral staircase if i ever saw one..
cory

This staircase is how HP Lovecraft would reach his attic. Non-euclidean and madness-inducing. :-)
codesuidae

Looks like it could use a handrail to me.
RugerRedhawk

Where do you get pine “boxes” like that? And what is under the small strips of pine since obviously they aren’t structural. I don’t know if I had that little space I think I would just go with a regular attic ladder.
Nadra

Regarding building codes: The staircase is in Sweden, where it is legal to build a staircase, and other things, in any way you want inside your own house. (There are regulations about fireplaces and elctricity, but that is about it. And public buildings have accessability codes.)
Happy

Could you imagine trying to carry anything such as furniture or storage boxes up or down those steps?
Infinite Decay

@9 Happy:
I was thinking the same thing. But on the other hand, most attic ladders don’t make it that much easier to move bulky things up and down from the attic.
Anonymous

It is similar in spirit to an “alternating tread staircase”. Under most US building code their illegal except for mezzanines that you could jump off of safely in a fire situation, end then only when it is impossible to use a more standard alternative, at least when I looked at building one in 2000 or so.

Those overhangs increase the edges by 50% or so and make it look spiffy, but I wonder how easy it is to catch a toe on them when ascending and fall on all those nice, sharp, crisp, wounding edges.
Jeff

I’ve used stairs nearly as steep as these only in old places, like in Europe or on the US east coast. These would not be allowed as new construction anywhere in the USA, unles a special waiver was being granted for a suicide encouragement facility. Besides, it’ painful archetecture and is not human-friendly enough.
murmurnyc

I think this is called an alternating tread stair. Usually the space saved is not so much about shoulder to shoulder width, but slope. With one of these, you get higher faster as you move forward than on a conventional stair…
Anonymous

There’s an amusement park version of alternating tread stair-cases.

Basically, you have two tread-tracks with a meter or more between single steps. Instead of the human raising his foot, the tracks themselves pump up and down (in the opposite direction of the other). You put your foot on Step A1 when the track is in the down-position, and then you let the rising track propel you upwards, where you shift your weight to the other side by stepping on B1 (which has descended when the A track ascended), and then letting that one propel you up so you can reach A2, etc.
Patrick Austin

Grandma isn’t going to do so well on those stairs.

Building codes _barely_ limit your freedom in design choices. I can’t believe how bitchy people get about mandating a baseline of product safety. Remember, a house isn’t just for you. It’s going to be used long after you’re dead, and burdening the next owners with unsafe features ain’t cool.

In this case the innovative/defective staircase is obvious and so I’d have a choice not to buy the house. More often though, really stupid code violations are hidden away behind walls and under floors and a potential buyer isn’t going to be making a fully informed purchase.
PontifexPrimus

They’re quite common in older buildings in Germany, I’ve seen them here a couple of times. They also go by the name of “Sambatreppe” (samba stairs) because they seem to force you to do a kind of dancing motion when using them.
Takuan

just depends on what you are used to. Plenty of grandmas in Japan that get up and down the stairs on hands and knees.
ankh

> Alternating tread stair

There’s one in Monticello, Jefferson designed it to take up less floorspace. Steep but easy.

It used to be open for the tours, I recall running up and down it as a kid on a tour there, but the last time I went the whole upper floor was unavailable to tourists because some regulator had decided the thing wasn’t safe to use.

The whirling noise is Mr. Jefferson, spinning ….
gambit32

I’ve used things like this before. They take getting used to, but having a railing would be REALLY beneficial