Understanding the layout and flow of stairs in architectural plans can be challenging, especially in the instance of multi-level staircases like stacked or snail staircases. This article discusses the intricacies of interpreting complex stair designs in floor plans, focusing on the concept of lines of rupture and the role they play in defining the layout of staircases.
Key Insights
- The article explores the concept of lines of rupture, which signify the section cut of the floor plan and are used to delineate where stairs begin and end in the layout. Double lines of rupture indicate stairs that ascend and descend from the same level.
- Subtle features in floor plans such as arrows and text provide vital clues about the flow of the stairs, including the direction of ascent or descent, and the relative level where a spectator is standing in relation to the stairs.
- The article also discusses the challenge of accurately reading and interpreting ancillary spaces, like storage rooms, in stair plans. These are often partial-height spaces and are difficult to discern from full-height spaces in a single drawing, necessitating close examination of the entire set of drawings.
Stairs are difficult to read in a plane, especially when we have stacked stairs or multiple stairs on top of each other. Let's quickly see four drawings of stairs. In this example, we have a stacked staircase and this staircase has a fill in the middle.
We also have three different levels of a snail staircase, which we could also call a staircase tower. We have the upper floor, an intermediate floor, and the lower floor. Let's look at the first staircase.
Where you see text, either up or down, this is where you can imagine standing. If you follow the arrow, you are going up the stairs or standing here and going down the stairs. In this plane, we have an up and a down, and these two points are at the same level.
If I'm in this text above, I can go up the stairs here, and if I stayed at the same level and went to the text below, I could go down the stairs here. When the stairs go up, they will end in a line of rupture. This line of rupture represents the section cut of the floor plan.
In this case, we have a double line of rupture. The first line of rupture represents the section cut for these stairs that go up. The second discontinuous line tells us that these stairs go down and continue down below the stairs above.
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Let's look at this in 3D. Remember, these two people are standing at the same level, so we saw up and down in the floor plan. We can see the stairs going up from the left and down from the right.
So, now we can see where we put our line of rupture. Replace this section cut that is shown here in our 3D view. We can see the stairs going up from the left and the stairs going down from the right and continue below.
So, in this case, we represent this condition with a double line of rupture. Now let's look at the upper floor of a zigzag staircase. This would represent a tower of stairs.
Again, when I look down, I know that I am standing at this level and the stairs go down, turn in the fill and go down again. Notice that there are no lines of rupture because there are no stairs that are covered by other stairs and no stairs that are cut by our section cut of the floor plan. This person is standing where we saw our text below, so we can see that we go down the stairs to the fill, we go down the stairs again, and we are in the fill of the floor below.
We can see that the fill of the floor below is covered by the fill of the floor above. This becomes more difficult to understand when we are on an intermediate floor. When we have some stairs that go up and some stairs that go down.
We see here that we have an arrow down as in our upper floor and an arrow up, so we know that we are standing at this level and we have stairs that go up and down from the same fill. In this case, the stairs above end in a line of rupture, which means that they are cut in section. And the stairs below end in the line of rupture because they are covered by these stairs above.
So, like in our straight stairs, we have a double line of rupture. We are only showing a person here, but this person could go up the stairs here or down the stairs here. You can see where it is cut.
This will be the line of rupture for the upper floor. You can also see the steps going down and how they go under the stairs above. So, again, we would have our lines of rupture here because these stairs are going up and here the stairs go down around the fill and continue to go down.
In our plant view, the stairs are running under the stairs that go up. At the bottom of our stair tower, we only have an arrow up. However, we know that this staircase will turn on the platform and continue up.
We know that by looking at other plant plans for the stair tower. So, how can we have a storage space below it? The key to remembering about plant plans is that it is not always a full height space. In this case, the storage room is a partial height space below the stairs.
Let's see that in 3D to have a better understanding of how that warehouse fits on the stairs. Here we see our standing person on the lower floor where we had the arrow up. We can see the stairs going up to the fill and continuing up from there.
We will have our separation line right here. You can also see the door behind this person. That is the door to our storage space.
Here you can see the storage room below the stairs. If we cut our stairs higher, let's say here, we would not have been able to see any of the storage space. Now, you can see the lower part of the door and the break line for the stairs.
Storage rooms below the stairs are difficult to understand in the plans. But just remember that they should not be full height spaces, especially right next to the break line in the plant plan. From the top view down, we can see the location of the break line here and the storage room.
When this is adjusted to the plant view, it is very difficult to understand from this single drawing that it is a partial height space and that it is a full height space. So make sure you look at the other drawings in your set of drawings to get the full picture.