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You might think that stairs are merely a boring commodity, that you probably use several thousand times a year. Well, a commodity they are, boring – not precisely.

In the early days, specifically designed stairs were used as a burglar alarm, as they were made with irregular steps so that the burglar would trip, fall and wake the homeowners up. Another interesting fact is that the ergonomic staircase calculations were only started to be used around the middle of the XVII century, before that they were either too steep or too short and lethal accidents often happened. Later on, comfortable staircase designs were only used for public places and front steps of manors, whereas the servants got the breakneck stairs. Nowadays, staircases are not only functional but also rather beautiful pieces of home design.

Our spiral staircase photography post already proved that even something as mundane as stairs can be absolutely beautiful details of exterior and interior design. We decided to expand on that theme and show you the 22 coolest examples of stair designs that we could find.

Perhaps one of the most critical non-aesthetic design elements of a staircase is space. If the designer can’t figure out a good way to use the area under when building a staircase, they will take up a lot of space for no good reason at all.

If you’ve seen an impressive staircase that’s worth sharing with our readers, you can share it with us at the bottom of this post!

Hanging Stairs

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Designed by: Arquitectura en Movimiento

Understairs Space

Designed by: Deriba Furniture

Tree Stairs

Designed by: unknown

Tree Banister

Designed by: Architetture del Ferro

Timber Stripe Staircase

Designed by: Tetrarc

Vivid Staircase

Designed by: Hanne Fuglbjerg

Staircase In Northampton

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Designed by: Philip Watts

Bookcase Staircase

Designed by: Levitate Architects

Flower Petal Staircase

Designed by: Patrick Jouin

Otherworldly Stairs

Designed by: Vincent Dubourg

Spiral Slide Staircase

Designed by: unknown

Lace Staircase

Designed by: Dust

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Sloping Stairs

Designed by: TAF arkitektkontor

Flat F.M. Stairs

Designed by: ecole

La Maison Unique Stairs

Designed by: Heatherwick studio

Steep Stairs

Designed by: unknown

Staircase Slide Combo

Designed by: Alex Michaelis

Space-Saving Stairs

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Designed by: unknown

Sensualscaping Stairs

Designed by: Atmos Studio

Workplace Stair Unit

Designed by: Studio Mieke Meijer

Metal Staircase

Designed by: Francesco Librizzi

Library Slider Stairs

Designed by: Moon Hoon