Of Organic Staircases…

In an aside from our usual features on projects today we take a break from the routine to showcase an amazing staircase installation supported by the American Hardwood Export council. When we saw this work of art we knew that it had to be shared with you. We hope you enjoy this as much as we did and if you would like to see more articles like this one please let us know!

Organic Staircase

“Navigating it isn’t meant to be as simple as taking a functional set of stairs to get from one level of a building to the next; it’s an experience in itself, taking in the whole structure from a new angle with every step.”

We are featuring an amazing tornado shaped, seemingly supportless staircase installed in a prominent business district tower and designed by architect Oded Halaf. This staircase took our breath away with the fantastic detail and high level of craftsmanship.

Built of American Tulipwood, Halaf  wanted the staircase to be free of all visible support – a complex and seemingly impossible assignment, which had to be contracted out to an expert  – Tomer Gelfand, who held the right mix of knowledge, experience, and immense creativity.

Building a tornado

The stair structure is composed of two interlocking parts: a skeletal metal staircase and a sculptural wooden envelope. Together, they rise as an expressive tornado from the reception desk – conceived at the ground and rising up to the first-floor mezzanine, fourteen meters above. The reception desk was envisioned as the starting point for the spiralling wooden sculpture and is made from the same tulipwood as the stair railings. To make this happen, Gelfand devised a system of continuous wooden profiles, which look fluid and flexible, but which are extremely stiff and stable.

Gelfand began by implementing an MRI-type scan to the skeleton, cutting vertically through the structure and generating sections in the width of the given wooden profile. The resulting number of cross-sections, each exported with a different radius requirement, produced a seemingly-endless amount of arches. In order to deal with this, Gelfand narrowed it down to ‘master-arches’ – devised by calculating the wooden profile’s average bending tolerance, which dictated the radius and angle of the ‘master-arches’.

Tornado Construction!

Next was creating the radial profiles from the material itself: a total of 9,000 linear meters of tulipwood was cut by CNC machine to create the stock for the master-arches, each coded and marked to fit precisely in the grand scheme. As no single piece was interchangeable, every measurement had to be taken in advance to ensure the success of the final installation. For example, each of the connecting points between the modules was completed with a reverse radius; together, they form a sinuous wave, thus creating a seamless transition.

American tulipwood was selected for the project by both Halaf and Gelfand, as it fulfilled the requirements in terms of color. Additional factors were the cost, performance, and workability of the material. Sourced from local suppliers, a total of 120 cubic meters of tulipwood was used in this project. According to Gelfand, freshly cut tulipwood showed a variety of natural colors, which would have hindered the seamless quality of the structure. In order to unify the design, a palette of 12 average shades was selected from the tulipwood pieces and then applied to the modules.

Lastly, the coded profiles were delivered to the site in order for the final puzzle to be put together: a very precise, four-month long, delicate process of assembly, managed and supervised by Gelfand himself. The final result encapsulates the paradox of contemporary creation: what appears as an artistic, hand-drawn gesture, is, in fact, a result of algorithmic data processing and the product of countless interchangeable pieces. Seemingly arbitrary yet utterly computerized; nature’s matter harnessed by today’s true artists of technology.

The Finished Staircase

With inputs from American Hardwood Export Council