Abstract:
The presence and reconciliation of the poetic with the pragmatic is deemed essential if any constructed endeavour in our built environment is to be termed architecture. This thesis argues that if architecture is that which offers us the ability to inhabit space and create place via the deliberate instigation of spatial, sensory, physical, emotional, spiritual and intellectual experience that engages us, communicates meaning and supports our lives beneficially, then architects do not currently and have not considered the stair historically, to be architecture. This thesis posits that historically and contemporaneously architects have treated and continue to treat the stair as either a pragmatic but tiresome necessity to be afforded as little attention as possible or as a kind of object-plaything that if it must be present, should be exploited for its visual qualities and symbolic connotations, no matter how fanciful or how meaningless the results. This thesis argues that as a result of these paradoxical but equally superficial treatments, and the length of time over which we have subjected the stair to them, its nature is now so indeterminate that not only do we as architects not question this treatment, we no longer even notice it. It is argued that the consequences of this indifference are the loss of opportunity to identify and examine the potential of the stair to offer us architectural, in the sense of inhabitory, experience of worth and meaning. The aim of this thesis therefore is to demonstrate that the stair, when examined from the perspective of place, rather than just space, offers many possibilities with regard to meaningful inhabitation. This is achieved through the use of two methods. A historical investigation and analysis is first conducted to trace, document and explain the development and use of the stair, to understand the causes for our superficial treatment of it, the stair's consequent indeterminate existence at the present time, and our apparent indifference to this. The knowledge gained is used to inform the second method of investigation, that of devising and conducting a series of design experiments aimed at apprehending the stair from the position of architecture as inhabitable place. The experiments demonstrate an alternative approach to consideration of the stair that reveal its unrealised potential to contribute to meaningful architectural, inhabitory, experience, and so enrich our day to day lives.
