Brooklyn office Caliper Studio have completed an apartment in New York that features a very complicated stainless steel staircase.
Called Genetic Stair, the fifteen-foot staircase has Corian treads supported by a structure of diagonal rods.
The project was designed for two art collectors and involved combining two existing apartments to form a combined living and gallery space.
Materials include stainless steel, translucent Corian, blackened steel and walnut wood.
Mobile translucent partitions can be positioned within the apartment to divide it further.
Photographs are by Ty Cole.
The text below is from Caliper Studio:
This project is Caliper Studio’s newly completed home for two art collectors on New York’s Upper West Side.
Located in the top two floors of a Mckim Mead and White building, the design merges two apartments to create a spacious domestic art gallery where home and art are intertwined.
The spaces are strung in an open sequence around a library core, from the entrance to the kitchen with a free standing stair and living spaces in between.
Continuous long walls enclose the space to display works from the owners’ collection: Tomma Abts, Lawrence Weiner, Franz Ackermann and more.
Full-height, translucent moveable partitions can be positioned to provide private enclosures when needed without reducing the overall scale of the space.
The stair codenamed “Genetic Stair” was conceived as a jewel in the apartment. It is placed just to the side of the entrance and is inserted in a newly formed floor opening.
Above, to one side of the opening, a full height glass wall brushes light deep into the space below.
Supported only at the top and bottom, the stair turns two hundred seventy degrees and rises fifteen feet.
The supporting structure is a modified space frame, in which the distribution of the diagonal rod members was determined using custom designed computational algorithms to arrive at a structurally sound solution.
The stair was fabricated by our metal fabrication shop. The complete computer model was used to seamlessly transition to the shop floor.
It provided the precise 3D files to laser cut the holes in the stainless tubes and enabled the development of sophisticated jigs/templates to layout the various assemblies.
A material palette of stainless steel, translucent white Corian, blackened steel and walnut was selected and forms a quiet but sharp backdrop for the art.
Precisely crafted details are expressed most noticeably in the stair’s diagonal connections, the door frames and countertops.
Each is transformed into an opportunity to express the material’s capabilities and the beauty of carefully crafted detail assemblies.
March 11th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
woah this must have been a nightmare to assemble. nice though
March 11th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Great design !
March 11th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
That thing is FUGLY!
March 11th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Why make it beautiful when you can make it complicated? :)
March 11th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
less is more?
March 11th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
talk about over-designed….
March 11th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
WOW! Thats a lot of hard work to get up 15ft but it is superbrilliant!
March 11th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
love the title, says it all. complicated. nothing more
March 11th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
wouldve been better if the main structural support rods were part of this ‘complicated’ idea in stead of having a frame and filling it with lots of rods
March 11th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
A great addition to the client’s gallery. Not the best design for a staircase I’ve seen, but still beautiful.
March 11th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
excelente diseño y forma , formando una transparencia q invita a querer usarla.
March 11th, 2010 at 2:17 pm
and it is a jewel as they want it 2 be !
complected and smart ,,, can’t stop looking at it !
Wondering… wt F the treads made of Glass ?
March 11th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
brilliant idea, complicated, interesting, wonderful and prepare you to design components that other people can come to have (in the form of a module / package) I like it
March 11th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
I think it’s beautiful. Why does everything have to be as simple as humanly possible? Surely we’ve accepted that modernism was a failure?
There’s often something beautiful in putting more effort into something than is strictly necessary.
March 11th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
totally agree with wasps. It’s a conventional frame filled with lots of fiddly little rods, which is why it appears anything but structurally optomized.
March 11th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
Genetic Stair – I would rather call it the Spaghettic Stair
It´s original though, never seen a staircase like that
March 11th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
It’s interesting
March 11th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
vem com manual de montagem em japonês, né? rs
incrivelmente bela e interessante! excelente trabalho!
March 11th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
why do you think that complicated can’t be beautiful? and for something to be nice, it doesn’t nessesary has to be simple. enough with the minimalistc design!
i love the photo from above with the dark parquet!
March 11th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
That staircase is busted…
March 11th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
the apartment is awesome. the stairs’ architecture aren’t quite up to it, though. beauty doesn’t necessarly lie in complicated structures, unless it has a certain logic
March 11th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
i have seen the same in a thesis by daniel davis – genetic algorithms and architecture. is it that..
March 11th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
wow….. good job
March 11th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
i take it people don’t understand that this staircase was designed almost entirely through computational algorithms, tha’s why some poeple may dislike the taste, because it isn’t actually designed by someone, but by a something
March 11th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
Top Notch. Great piece of art.
March 11th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
isn´t only complicated, it´s ugly, too.
March 11th, 2010 at 6:14 pm
I disagree with the structure critics; I think its conventional silhouette is intriguing, in that it exists seemingly unbothered by the actual load bearing inner rods. And that they calculated appropriate load-bearing placements of the rods? Clever indeed…
I think it’s an impressive feat of craft and construction, to be able to fit those pieces together so precisely at such angles, with such minute tolerances.
Must everything incorporate minimalist principles in architecture? Look at the context of their interior decor. The aesthetic of the staircase makes perfect sense in such a setting. I suggest the detractors enjoy themselves on their van der Rohe tours, and let the rest of us get on with exploring new ideas.
March 11th, 2010 at 10:33 pm
looks better in drawing than reality.
March 11th, 2010 at 10:49 pm
how many trial runs till the fabricator got it right?
March 12th, 2010 at 4:37 am
Is there a point to making such a complicated structure? I mean, what is the point of a “Genetic” structure if it is not adding a performance advantage? The whole point of “Genetic” formations is that they are high performance. This just looks like a over-complicated mess with no real intention other than making a cool staircase. I just don’t see the rigor in the design process.
Anyway, it looks nice.
March 12th, 2010 at 9:02 am
Throw some paint with colour on those white steps…and voila…a full 3D ‘Jackson POLLOCK’ tribute in all its glory. :)
March 12th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
this is a farce.
the architects were so absorbed by their compulsive mimicking of structural complexity, that they couldn’t focus on the genuine, and more prosaic, problems.
see the image with the cooling vent? this could have been resolved in hundreds of different ways…
March 12th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
I love the ideal of modernism and minimalist form but I agree with Angerofthenorth, not everything should be judged by it’s simplicity, this is a mess, a complicated and unnecessary mess but it has a form of beauty because of it’s chaos.
I also agree with wasps, it would have been more successful if the main supports had been designed to comply with the complicated description.
March 12th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
I agree with you HMS this a “Beautiful mess”
March 13th, 2010 at 5:42 am
I like ornamentation….this seems like ornamentation disguised as some sort of “natural” “random” structural non pattern…. Not any worse than floral wallpaper!
(and I really like floral wallpaper)
March 13th, 2010 at 6:58 am
treads shoulda been glass. that image of above look just like a generic staircase.
March 14th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
wow! it’s very complicated!
March 14th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Soooo genetic !!!
(irony)
March 14th, 2010 at 10:29 pm
This would be a great product for IKEA.
You bring it home in a box and then you just have to assemble it!
March 15th, 2010 at 4:40 am
It’s too random looking… unlike say the CCTV building in Beijing where the computational designed structure is obviously stronger at the greater bending moments with more members. If this came across like that I would be more impressed… rather than just a bundle of sticks holding some stuff up.
I still love the look of it though. Nice precise manufacturing too… I wonder whether the computer can print out instructions to build it too… Ikea style haha.
I wish they showed the construction process… I envisage some complex jigs/scaffolds/something were used to hold it in place while building etc.
Constructed in-situ?
March 15th, 2010 at 8:04 am
i love how you include the working drawings, keep up the great publishing!
March 15th, 2010 at 11:46 pm
What a beautiful stair, estructure and forms are incredible! I admire your work
March 21st, 2010 at 8:53 pm
can we know the price of this stair?
March 22nd, 2010 at 2:57 pm
its just a bunch of complex struts placed in a very conventional frame
Im not convinced, and from above it could be any staircase anywhere, it feels like it hasnt gone far enough, not nearly far enough. main supports should be all abstract and chopped up, otherwise whats the point?
its reassuring to know all the money in the world cant necessarily buy taste or style
March 22nd, 2010 at 2:59 pm
oh god its a stainless arne quinze
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
April 5th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
The stairs was most certainly conceived as a “piece of art”, which, by looking at the artwork exposed, you can see it fits perfectly with the aura of the apartment.
I think it is elegant, unique, a great piece of “decorative” engineering, like the Eifel Tower.
On the other hand, I thought the furniture was too spare and not enough inviting for a residence. It looked too commercial, cold, but I guess that is just personal taste.
April 13th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Awesome! I’ll like to use this setup in one of my sites.
Pl. Let me know of availibility in India.
April 13th, 2010 at 3:31 pm
I Wonder if the Corian Steps also provide support to the structure?
Pl. comment.
April 16th, 2010 at 9:46 pm
Pankaj, the majority of the structural stiffening work is done by the steel rods, although the Corian treads do help to further tie the entire structure together. I’m not sure what you mean by “use this setup”, but feel free to contact the office if you have any more questions.
August 15th, 2010 at 9:18 am
need balls just to think about… they made it! show! congrats!
August 17th, 2010 at 10:02 am
it looks pretty and looks good for a gallery but altough i love structures and as Dieter Rams says "good design is as little design as possible". Too complicated and too much material waste.