Often, spiral staircases are installed simply as a way to combat the issue of limited space, since they typically take up less room than a straight set. Thanks to their curvaceous shape, they are also more suited to a more centralised position without causing an awkward break in a free-flowing layout. With that said, the spiral staircase designs that we’re looking at here are either big in impact or huge in their elegant modern stature. We’ll be taking a look at narrow wheels that explode with colour, style and innovation, some larger spirals and helical staircases that cut extraordinarily beautiful and sculptural silhouettes into their surroundings, plus a selection of colossal feats of magnificent engineering.
A cool cascade. This solid swirling white balustrade breaks into a cascade of concrete at its base, where heavy treads appear to float absolutely weightlessly.
Turn up the heat to amp up the colour. Tempered steel shimmers an incredible shade of deep purple with rainbow flares, which makes this heat-treated balustrade into a startling focal piece within a subdued monochrome setting.
Looking like it has burst from the swirling sky of Edvard Munch’s painting, The Scream, this artistic freeform staircase is striped with eye-catching cuts of colour.
Rails of red. Bright red treads hang free of risers in this fabulously unique spiral staircase design, which is suspended above a contrasting green courtyard with its own stepped border. Colour coordinated furniture rallies a supporting palette nearby.
Melted gold. This seductive staircase design drips a luxurious melt of gold through a light-filled stairwell, where sunrays accentuate its magnificently rich lustre.
Like a pristine play on Picasso’s Girl with a Mandolin, this abstract modern staircase combines curves with the cubism of straight closed risers and boxed landing areas.
Layers of luxury. An eye-catching feature wall or a bespoke floor to ceiling bookcase makes the ideal tall accompaniment to an elegant spiral staircase installation.
Curvaceous complements. Not only is this wooden spiral staircase finished with artfully crafted adjoining curves to its mezzanine, but the living room furniture imitates its grace in curvaceous silhouettes below.
Maximise light in a limited space with an open tread, small spiral staircase. This piece has a pause in the slimline balustrade halfway up to give access to a partially elevated room.
A bronze beauty enchants a double height living space with dark, lustrous allure. A wall of glass bricks allows light to enter behind the construction to further illuminate the show.
Created in contemporary French limestone, this is the world’s first freestanding, 320-degree stone staircase, built by The Stonemasonry Company for a private house in Cheshire.
Stepping stones. Step off your staircase onto a pebbled bed–or at least create the illusion of doing so with a bridging tread over a textured floor treatment that’s confined within a suitably rounded border.
A different kind of rounded stone bed is achieved here, with stone tiles cut on their axis to create textural contrast. A rounded stone wall encases the stairwell to exaggerate the effect.
A Danish architect and developer built a house for himself and his family in Denmark, which features a spectacular spiral staircase design that’s made from a staggering 630 pieces of CNC-cut plywood.
Curves and core courtyards. An open core is just begging to be filled with an eye-catching focal piece, so why not make it a piece of mother nature’s own architecture with a layered courtyard design.
The halfway hangout. When a spiral staircase is this big, you might as well make a pitstop. Add some shapely benches where creative colleagues can hang out and collaborate within the inspiring surroundings.
A low hanging chandelier adds an elegant column of illumination down the centre of a spiralled ascent. Glass sided balustrades allow the glow to pass all the way through, safely highlighting the twisting treads underfoot.
Make waves with a water feature. The sound of rippling water will carry all the way up the open stairwell to the second floor to create a serene connection across all levels.
Tactile twists. Cut deep at the risers and shallow underneath, this columnar design is pieced together with hundreds of layers that you just can’t help but want to touch.
With an ET sucked up in a tractor beam, we know we’ve gone space age now. Spaceship-like moulded sides encapsulate a futuristic staircase that would look at home on Star Trek… Or in a cool white minimalist pad invaded by Smart Home add-ons and cutting-edge furniture design.
Contoured fins mould a freeform outer shell around regular treads and risers here, creating a truly amazing design piece where there could have stood mundanity.
In the community focussed M.I. bookstore in Harbin, China, HMA architects & designers conceived a colossal staircase design and various spatial experiences that all centre around a love for books.
Material contradiction. An unfeasibly lightweight wireframe column forms the heart of a solid stone staircase, fashioning an interesting contradiction in visual weight.
This exquisitely detailed spiral is Leonardo da Vinci’s double helix staircase, built in 1520. You can find it inside of the Château de Chambord in France.
Stacked to the rafters. This wood framed spiralling construction features open sided book stacks that provide colour both inside and outside of the enormous stairwell.
Jogging up and down these stairs would be a little like jumping out of a jet plane… Sleek white streamlined metal spinning from view, and not totally safe.
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Visualizer: Andrew McConnell
Is it a cool balustrade of a dinosaur rib cage? Either way, it would look totally awesome next to a fierce recreation of a velociraptor.
The stuff treehouse dreams are made of. Canopystair is a modular system that attaches around a tree trunk without the use of tools to form an exterior spiral staircase. The system is lightweight and designed to leave the tree free of any damage or marks.
Amazingly, this unusual piece begins its day as an ordinary (extremely tall) chest of drawers. With the push of a button, the chest of drawers swivels out to form a spiral staircase– storage and space saving ingenuity in one.
