The Deep Dive: A Polite Stair

As every good designer knows, the details matter. The choice of a single material or a joinery method can make or break a project. That’s why we’re launching The Deep Dive, a new monthly newsletter and column where we give the architects and designers in our audience permission to obsess over the details in a home we’ve recently featured. We ask expert colleagues to share the inspiration behind one design element—as well as the nitty-gritty of how they made it a reality.

To kick off this newsletter and column, we head to Toronto for LGA Architectural Partners’ two-story laneway house that appeared in the July/August travel issue. The accessory dwelling unit is located behind the home of photographers Robert Burley and Debra Friedman, and the couple currently use the ground floor as an art studio and lease out the one-bedroom residence overhead. 

Readers have been particularly curious about the care with which the space between those two floors was crafted. Behind a door painted International Klein Blue, a set of winder stairs appears to unfurl from the second floor and barely kiss the epoxy-covered hallway. Even though the banister is a single opaque plane that connects the stringer to the first-floor ceiling, LGA pulled off that composition with an unexpected delicacy—imbuing the compact hall with an intentionality and grace that any renter would be thrilled to come home to.

While winder stairs aren’t universally permitted due to the uneven depth of treads when they round a corner, Toronto allows them for a residential project like the Burley Friedman Laneway House. In turn, "We used them, because laneway houses are very constrained in terms of massing and gross floor area," explains architect Janna Levitt, who adds that, given code requirements, spiral staircases aren’t quite the space savers they’re reputed to be. "One winder allowed us to take up less area horizontally and to get higher up, faster," says the LGA partner. 

Levitt adds that banister, treads, and risers treated in a light-colored, monolithic fashion would make the hallway feel airier than its approximate 10-by-7-foot dimensions. LGA chose to clad those frame-constructed surfaces in a thick, rift-sawn white oak ply, "because we didn’t want anything that had a lot of texture or was too lively; this is quite neutral and introduces a certain domesticity for the second-floor apartment." Levitt had considered specifying poured concrete or steel, which would have protected the stair from water and salt tracked in from Toronto’s wintertime streets. "But concrete is particularly expensive, and its formwork would have been challenging in a very small space. We also really wanted something that appears to unfold." Her solution for grimy shoes, then? "You have a fair degree of faith in your renters, and you get a heavy-duty mat." 

The handrail contributes to the stair’s visual weightlessness. Indeed, it does not sink into the epoxy floor but anchors to the lowermost tread, and fastens to the banister in only a few spots. Deciding against a bulkier, if easier, off-the-shelf solution, LGA custom-designed the handrail in bent and powder-coated steel. The piece and its mounting brackets were then fabricated by Stainless Steel Claw, a suburban Toronto workshop, for the project’s GC Vanderwal Builds. As most building regulations do not require a stair guard for surfaces less than 30 inches off the ground, LGA also eschewed inserting balusters between the rail and the bottom two treads. "In a tiny space, you really want to minimize the amount of stuff to look at. In a tiny space, you are also going to interact with something like a handrail much more intensely than you would in a larger, conventional house," Levitt says of the almost graphic element. "Boiling it down and styling it, this railing is about the minimum you can get by code." 

Is there a trend that’s piquing your interest? Do you want to showcase your work or practice in our next installment? Reach out to pro@dwell.com.