INTRODUCTION

Means of climbing up or down from one floor level
to another in the form of steps or stairs, have been in
existence for many centuries. However, in the major-
ity of the UK’s London houses in the 13th century,
stairs were only crude arrangements of upright poles
with projecting pegs, unsafe ladders and barked tree
trunks roughly notched into triangular- shaped steps.
Stairs only really developed in the 17th century, after
the Great Fire of London. This historic event brought
about the first comprehensive Building Act in 1667.
Since then, many Building and Public Health acts
have been in force and numerous building byelaws
have been operating in different parts of the country –
often in contradiction to each other. Not until 1965
were The Building Regulations introduced to replace
the byelaws and establish uniformity.
These Regulations, having been amended and
revised many times since, are now embodied in sepa-
rate publications known as Approved Documents (often
abbreviated to AD). In this chapter, we are only con-
cerned with AD K1 which controls the design, con-
struction and installation of Stairways, ramps and ladders
in England and Wales – but not Scotland or premises
which are occupied by the Crown. In practice, however,
whether controlled or not, good stair- design nowadays
cannot deviate from certain established principles.

DETAILS OF DESIGN

Figures 6.1(a)(b): The first thing to understand in
the basic theory of stair design is that one move-
ment of a person’s foot going forward is referred to
as ‘the going’ of the step and the other foot rising up
(to another level) is referred to as ‘the rise’ of the step.
Therefore, from a design point- of- view, all of the step-
movements going forward are referred to as ‘the total
going’ (TG) and all of the step- movements rising up
are referred to as ‘the total rise’ (TR). These two terms
(TG and TR) are important references to the simple

maths and geometrical division required to design

legal flights of stairs. Mathematically, a step can be

related to a right- angled triangle, whereby its base-

line represents the going of a single step, the adjacent

side represents the rise – and the ratio of each to the

other, forming an hypotenuse, determines the legally-

important pitch angle of a step, as illustrated at Figures

6.1(a) and (b).

6

Designing and making stairs to

current building regulations

Figures 6.1 (a) and (b) The concept of a basic triangle

transposed into a step.

GOING

PITCH

ANGLE

PITCH

RISE

(a) (b)

Figure 6.1 (c) A multiple of steps related to the division of

the total going and total rise.

X

TG

TG Divided by four 4

TR

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(c)