Single-Stair Design Contest Envisions Human-Scale Buildings

A design competition hosted by the American Institute of Architects’ Baltimore chapter challenged architects and design enthusiasts to create visions for single-stair residential buildings, a typology that is making a comeback in some U.S. cities as local governments move to re-legalize it. Robert Steuteville outlines the contest’s results in the Congress for New Urbanism journal Public Square.

For decades, building codes required more than one staircase in residential buildings with multiple stories, citing safety and evacuation concerns. However, advocates for single-stair buildings argue that modern building materials and techniques, along with new knowledge about fire prevention and technology, make single-stair buildings just as safe as others.

The design competition followed on the heels of a proposed Baltimore bill that would modify the city code to allow single-stair buildings up to six stories, “provided they incorporate enhanced fire safety measures.”

“During the panel, the jury members repeatedly emphasized the practical value of the contestants' efforts, specifically providing compelling visualizations of the single-stair building typology within the context of Baltimore's urban fabric. As juror Marques King noted, single-stair can serve as a community engagement tool by offering a new urban form that is more visually appealing, humane, and incremental than the over-scaled monolithic structures and double-loaded corridor buildings that are an unfortunate outcome of current zoning codes.”