What is staircase? | 8 Different Types of Staircase | Characteristics

What are stairs?

Stair is a structure with series of steps which helps to commute up and down between the floors or landings.

An enclosed place where the stairs are placed is known as staircase.

Stair consists of thread, risers, stringers, balusters, railing and other relevant components.

Stairs can be constructed by using different materials based on one’s requirement, such as stone, wood, steel, RCC and Brick are used.

Also Read-What are rocks?|Different Types of Rocks| Examples

Flight of Stairs or Stairway

A series of connected steps without any break between landing and floor is called stairway or flight of stair.

There will be two flights, flight 1 and flight 2. Where flight 1 connects from floor to mid landing and flight 2 connects from mid landing to next floor.

Flight of stairs must consist minimum 3 steps and a maximum of 12 steps.

There are various forms of stairways such as straight, Spiral, Half turn,  round etc.

Climbing stairs has many health benefits like burning calories etc. But nowadays, Modern methods like Elevators and escalators have dominated stairways.

Characteristics of Staircase

1.  Sufficient landing area

2. Flight should have specified number of stairs(Min 3-Max 12).

3. All steps should be of uniform sizes.

4. Must be near to all rooms of the building.

5. Must be strong and durable.

Types of staircase

There are different types of staircase designs, One can consider based on the design requirements or based on the places such as, Public buildings has different design and residential buildings have different designs.

1.  Straight Stairs
2.  Spiral Stairs
3.  Circular Stairs or Curved Stairs
4.  Quarter Turn Stairs
5.  Half Turn Stairs
6.  Bifurcated Stairs
7.  Ladder
8.  Geometrical Stairs

1.  Straight Stairs

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These types of staircase have a linear flight with no change in direction. And these are one of the common type of staircase.

2. Spiral Stairs

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Spiral Staircase are compact designed which is centered around single pole. These are usually made of Steel, wooden, or Concrete. These type of staircase can be considered when available space in compact or less. 

3. Circular Stairs or Curved Stairs

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These stairs are continues and has no landings. These type of stairs are usually seen in architectural designed buildings. Materials like RCC and Irons are used to make these stairs.

4. Quarter Turn Stairs

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In these staircase, Stair that takes a right angle turn at some point are called Quarter Turn Stairs. These are also called as L-Shaped Stairs.

5. Half Turn Stairs

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Stairs that takes a full u shape turn or 180 degree turn are called half turn stairs.
These are further divided into following types
a. Dog legged Stairs
b. Open Well Stairs

a. Dog legged Stairs

Due to staircase structure resemblance to the dog’s leg these are called as dog-legged staircase.

Here the flights rise in opposite direction with in between landings. These are suitable where the availability of width is equal to combined width of two flights.

b. Open Well Stairs

These type of staircase are similar to the dog-legged staircase but with a space between two fights.

6. Bifurcated Stairs

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Generally, This type of staircase is seen in office buildings, libraries and other large buildings. Here a flights is divided at a mid landing into two or more narrow flights which branches off to the right or left.

7. Ladder

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These types of staircase are Linear in shape and can be moved from one place to other, Usually used for temporary access of heights such as books self’s and etc.

8. Geometrical Stairs 

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These type of staircase consists of opening in between the flights. Here Newel post is not required. The handrail is continuous without any interruptions.