John Horton: Design, Manufacture, Installation
Client: FisherID
Part of the magic of this glass staircase is that, even though all of the stairs structural components and workings are exposed and plain to see, the staircase retains a sense of mystery as to how it actually works.
This unique feature staircase was designed and made for interior design practice FisherID, to serve their own studio in SE London. The staircase is cantilevered from a hidden wall mounted stringer, the toughened glass treads and risers are structurally connected via UV bonded stainless steel brackets. The staircase’s simple structural principle is that it is the UV bonded glass risers which provide the vertical support for each of the glass treads.
UV bonding of metal to glass is in itself an almost magical process, the bonded joints are unbelievably strong, during our own loading tests, the toughened glass would always fail before the bonded joint.