Introduction

Staircase is an important component of a building providing access to different floors and roof of the
building. It consists of a flight of steps (stairs) and one or more intermediate landing slabs between
the floor levels. Different types of staircases can be made by arranging stairs and landing slabs.
Staircase, thus, is a structure enclosing a stair. The design of the main components of a staircase-stair,
landing slabs and supporting beams or wall – are already covered in earlier lessons. The design of
staircase, therefore, is the application of the designs of the different elements of the staircase.

Types of Staircase

a. Straight Stairs: These stairs run from floor to floor without having a landing.
b. Turning Stairs: These stairs are again of four categories:

i. Quarter turn stairs: Quarter turn stairs are those which change direction with the introduction of
quarter space landing or by providing winders. This type of stair may be newel quarter turn or
geometrical quarter turn.

ii. Half turn stairs: Half turn stairs are those which reverse direction or change direction to 180°. They
are, again, of three types:
Dog-legged or newel half turn stairs the name is due to its sectional appearance. The newel posts are
provided at the beginning and end of each flight.

Open newel half turn stairs have open well or open half turn space or well between the outer strings.

Geometrical half turn stairs are those whose stringers and hand rails are continuous without having
any intermediate newel post.

iii. Three quarter turn stairs: Three quarter turn stairs are those which change direction three times
with its upper flight crossing the lower flight. These may either be newel type or open type.
iv. Bifurcated stairs: These are generally used in public buildings at their entrance hall. The wider
bottom flights bifurcate into two narrow flights on either side for better flow of climbers.

In addition to above, there are continuous stairs, which do neither have any landing nor any
intermediate newel post. These continuous stairs are geometrical of the following types:

i. Circular Stairs: Circular stairs are geometrical stairs of half turn or full turn as shown in Fig. 6.9. These
are made of R.C.C. or steel or timber.

ii. Spiral stairs: Spiral stairs are usually made of either R.C.C. or metal and are employed at locations
where there are space limitations. These are also used as emergency stairs, and are provided at the
back of the building. All the steps are winding. The stairs are, therefore, not comfortable.
iii. Helical stair: Helical stair looks fine but its structural design and construction is very complicated. It
is made of R.C.C. in which a large portion of steel is required for resisting bending, shear and torsion.