Endless Stair

The project was built in wood, to underline the merits of the material as a sustainable form of construction. It also allowed the project’s sponsor, the American Hardwood Export Council, to showcase their products. The installation was positioned outside the Tate Modern gallery, one of London’s most visited and best-loved art galleries, for four weeks.

Inspired by M.C. Escher’s popular drawings, Endless Stair is not a stair without end, but a stair designed to be endlessly reconfigured: a three-dimensional exercise in modular composition, structure and scale. An entirely prefabricated construction, each piece is an essential part of the additive structure. Loads are transferred through demountable flights that can be entirely reassembled on another site in a different configuration.

The tulip tree is a light and strong species of the magnolia family. It is a plentiful and sustainable American hardwood export, but for the first time Endless Stair uses it as a cross-laminated timber (CLT). With an extraordinary strength-to-weight ratio, the design exploits the performative and aesthetic properties of a beautiful species.

This was demonstrated with a further, column-free composition, using seven of the original thirteen flights at the FuoriSalone 2014 exhibition in Milan.

Endless Stair was a huge success for the festival, its sponsors and the many thousands of people who climbed its steps. We are proud of its impact on the cultural life of the Capital and what it says about our commitment to innovation and sustainability in building design. We hope that, as it is reconfigured for other design festivals, it can present a fresh case study for engineered timber becoming the key construction material of the 21st century.