30 Weird and Creative Stair Designs

When we  walk into a building with more than one floor, we never really give a second thought to the stairs. Let’s face it stairs aren’t the most exciting feature of a building, they’re usually pretty boring with their design and structure.

To help change your mind and how weird and creative stair designs can be, we’ve found these 30 unusual stairs which will open your eyes. A stairway, staircase, stairwell, flight of stairs, or simply stairs is a construction designed to bridge a large vertical distance by dividing it into smaller vertical distances, called steps. Stairs may be straight, round, or may consist of two or more straight pieces connected at angles.

Scroll down to see these 30 Weird and Creative Stair Designs, which one if your favourite? Comment below…

Floating Helical

Hard to believe that this staircase does not seem to touch the ground. Amazing veneer work that flows down the balustrade and onto the soffit. Via Isay Weinfeld

Floating Disks

These oversized disks of concrete seem to float between levels. Via LA Times, photo by Allen J. Schaben

Triangular Treads

These triangular in profile treads give the stair a solid feel when viewed from behind and floating when looked side on. Via Archdaily

Dinosaur Ribs

Biology inspired staircase situated in a South Korean medical centre via frameweb.

Tienda Centauro / AUM Arquitetos

A very bright shiny staircase, reminiscent of Heatherwicks Longchamp NY staircase. Via plataformaarquitectura

Steel Stairs

From Rowin Petersma, this divided staircase is made of expanded steel that lets the maximum amount of light shine through from the top floor of the apartment.

Deep Stairs

These unusually deep stairs, and the 4-stories of house surrounding them, come with the rather large price tag of $38 million. The iconic NYC property, designed by Paul Rudolph, has seen many a famous person inside including Halston and Gunter Sachs, who were both previous owners.

Bizarre Stairs

This small, uniquely shaped house calls for a small, uniquely shaped staircase and that’s just what Kyoto-based Alphaville Architects designed.

Stone Stairs

Designed by Castroferro Arquitectos, these extra-wide stone stairs with wood treads on top match the floating wood stairs above, all with enough room to store books on the sides.

Multi Colored Textured Wood

Italian company 14 Ora Italiana has a collection of wood grain porcelain tiles that were inspired by the works of Andy Warhol. The Uonuon line comes in fourteen colors that are featured on this colorful and fun staircase.

Understairs

“Coat storage is often an eyesore, but not with this understairs unit. The well-engineered sliding cupboard can use hooks or clothes rails according to preference.” (Designed by Deriba Furniture)

Sensualscaping Stairs

“The stair is a continuation and intensification of the simple graphic skirting board lines that trace their way through the house. As they turn the corner into the stair void, they expand like a genie released from a lamp, curling and separating and bifurcating from the wall to form the delicate edge of the stair treads, lifting into the air to rise as the veil of the balustrade.” (Designed by Atmos Studio)

Stairs

Staircase designed for a private residence in Stockholm, Sweden in 2006 by Gabriella Gustafson & Mattias Ståhlbom. (Designed by TAF arkitektkontor)

Flat F.M

These floating stairs link the living room to the private space reserved for the owner under the rooftops. (Designed by ecole)

Tree Stairs

Beautiful metal tree serves as a handrail. (Designed by Architetture del Ferro)

Spiral Staircase Slide

A super fun spiral staircase design with a slide for kids.(Designer: unknown)

The Rainbow House Stairs

“The Rainbow House is a magical oasis on a busy road filled with people and noise. When you step through its front door, you enter a parallel universe of fun, colour, movement and sensuality, leaving the ordinary world far behind.” (Designed by Ab Rogers)

Emmental Stairs

“The Emmental stairs was designed for a young creative family with an equisite design taste and an eye for details and their two children. They were just starting the refurbishment of their apartment and wanted interior stairs that would harmonize with the historic ambiance of the apartment and their aesthetic requirements, but also add an extra touch to their living space.” (Designed by Biljana Jovanović)

Blood Vessel Stairs

“The home may be a machine for living, but it’s also an mechanical extension of the body.” (Designed by DMVA Architecten)

Steel Stair Mesh at Villa La Roche

“French architecture firm archiplein designed Villa La Roche in Rochebaudin with a centerpiece staircase wrapped in an irregular steel mesh.” ^[1] (Designed by archiplein)

Barbie Shanghai Store

Spiral staircase enclosed by eight hundred Barbie dolls. (Designed by Slade Architecture)

M Lofts

“The alternate tread stair was designed to be a perfect union of functionality, structure and form. With regard to functionality, the stair is comfortable, safe to climb, and spatially efficient; the open sides of the stair provide ample and well-placed grip locations.” (Designed by nC2architecture)

New York University Stairs

“The complete interior renovation of the 1890 corner building at 5 Washington Place for the consolidation of the New York University Department of Philosophy organizes the new spaces around light and phenomenal properties of materials. A new stair shaft below a new skylight joins the 6-level building vertically with a shifting porosity of light and shadow that change seasonally. Prismatic film was installed on the south-facing stairwell windows which occasionally break the sunlight into a prismatic rainbow.” (Designed by Steven Holl Architects)

Bookcase Staircase

“Limited by space, we melded the idea of a staircase with our client’s desire for a library to form a ‘library staircase’ in which English oak stair treads and shelves are both completely lined with books.” (Designed by Levitate Architects)

Ribbon Staircase

“The concept of a delicate rippling ribbon was chosen in view of the exposed position of the staircase in the main living area of the house. The staircase is constructed from 10mm thick sheet metal. Pairs of adjoining steps connected with an oblique external side joist form a bracket anchored in the wall. Each of the brackets is constructed as a rigid frame. The higher steps bear mainly drawing forces, while pressure is transmitted through the lower steps.” (Designed by HSH Architects)

Godzilla Stairs

“The ambiguous spatial limits, along with the light streaming in through the hidden windows, lends the place a feeling of endlessness.” (Designed by Chae-Pereira Architects)

Stairs Made From Skateboard Decks

“This is a set of steps I made for our skateboard school. The aluminium beam is a solid billet of aluminium and the decks were custom made with concave only on one edge. You should see the look on our students faces when they make the treck to the basement.” (link)

Staircase in Northampton

Sculptural staircase with glass and timber details. (Designed by Philip Watts)

Loft F27

“The concept “Black or White“ is the underlying idea of a radical new design for an urban apartment in the north of Graz. Modern architecture has transformed a two-storey apartment built in the 1990s into a multi-functional loft serving as home and office. Whereas the owners see the apartment as the perfect fusion of functional and extravagant design, some visitors tend to regard it as too austere.” ^[2] (Designed by Schlosser und Partner)

Storage Stairs

Creative way to use space under your stairs.(Designer: unknown)

Staircase Slide Combo

“At the request of his children, London architect Alex Michaelis installed a slide next to the staircase in their new eco-friendly dream home.” ^[3] (Designed by Alex Michaelis)

National Olympic Commettee House

“This work represents the idea of dynamics in sport with the abstract compositions of the staircase and the reception table. The first object you encounter is the introverted desk with its never-ending fissure, and then you meet the extroverted staircase – like the open path to Olympus, where the summit meets its own reflection, inferring that striving never ends, that there is no limit to human achievement.” (Designed by Architects of Invention)

Extreme Staircase

Designed by Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann

Timber Stripes

“Great stair for the School of Arts comprised of laminated timber. Some of the timber strips have been painted adding extra dynamics.” (Designed by Tetrarc)

Spiral Staircase

“From above and below, the wood grain provides a contrasting and changing set of fine-grain textures set against the regular rhythms of the overall stair design.” ^[4] (Designed by Patrick Jouin)