Brooklyn Heights Stair

Brooklyn, New York
Completed 2010

What is that stair doing? Often In New York City, stairs are the most expressive features of apartments. They represent the values of their owners and the character of our vertical city.

A sculptural staircase is the central feature of a Brooklyn Heights triplex apartment renovation. It’s made of steel, wood and plaster, an assembly of curves that cloak a structural skeleton. It’s constructed with centuries-old artisanal building methods and based on models created with 21st century technology. The smoothed plaster forms mirror the flow of movement through the space, evoking bodily curves, flower pedals. Upstairs, a desk and bookshelf unwind and corkscrew down, landing in the main living space where they become trunk-like, housing a blackened steel firewood-box.