10 incredible, Apple-worthy staircases that will make your head spin

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The Apple Store on  Boylston Street in Boston boasts a remarkable spiral staircase. Photo: Joseph Thornton/Flickr CC
The Apple Store on Boylston Street in Boston boasts a remarkable spiral staircase. Photo: Joseph Thornton/Flickr CC

If you’ve ever walked into a flagship Apple Store unconvinced of the magic of Cupertino’s products, a wondrous curvy, glass staircase might have softened your psyche.

Apple’s retail outlets are almost as well known for award-winning architecture and eye-catching staircases as for the MacBooks, iPads and iPhones on sale. But Apple Stores aren’t the only places to make vertical trips seem like a magical journey.

Amazing staircases

Dezeen Magazine, one of the foremost showcases for cutting-edge design and architecture, curates a Pinterest page devoted to staircase porn. The page features close to 600 different staircases and has more than 337,000 followers.

Featured here are 10 of Dezeen’s selections we think could inspire Apple’s architects. There’s nothing like clean lines and ethereal shapes to take your breath away before you even begin huffing and puffing up the steps.

1) The Ribbon Chapel

The Ribbon Chapel wedding chapel in Onomichi, Japan. Photo: Nacasa & Partners
The Ribbon Chapel wedding chapel in Onomichi, Japan. Photo: Nacasa & Partners

Two curving, ribbonlike staircases wrap around a wedding chapel designed by Tokyo architect Hiroshi Nakamura. The Ribbon Chapel overlooks the Seto Inland Sea on the grounds of the hotel Bella Vista Sakaigahama.

2) Elastic Staircase

Photo: Next Architects/DeZeen Magazine
Photo: Next Architects

The Elastic Staircase, above, doesn’t lead anywhere and is impossible to walk all the way around. Designed by NEXT Architects, this pathway is located in a suburb near Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and actually wraps around the underside.

3) A floating staircase

Photo: HIdden Fortress/DeZeen Magazine
Photo: HIdden Fortress

Design studio Hidden Fortress designed a floating box of a staircase for the Berlin homeware store, Bazar Noir. The outside of the staircase is painted black, offering a surprise to the shopper when they see the blonde wood set of stairs.

4) ‘Warm heart’

Photo: Valerie Bennett
Photo: Valerie Bennett

Haworth Thompkins renovated a warehouse for a theater company in London and pulled together a complicated space with this staircase. Haworth Thompkins describes the staircase as the “warm heart of the building.”

5) Elegant spiral

Photo: Takeshi Hosaka Architects/Dezeen Magazine
Photo: Takeshi Hosaka Architects

This spiral staircase rises through a residence in Japan designed by Takeshi Hosaka Architects.

6) Labyrinth

Photo: Supermachine Studio/DeZeen Magazine
Photo: Supermachine Studio

The Labyrinth is an interconnected staircase at park near the Bang Saen Beach in Thailand. It was designed by Bangkok’s Supermachine Studio.

7) Surrounded by timbers

Photo: John Gollings
Photo: John Gollings

Hang on to the railing when you ascend these steps at Hotel Hotel in Canberra, Australia. Your head will move independently of your feet as look at the pieces of reclaimed timber that surround the staircase. March Studio of Melbourne was commissioned to design a lobby that joins apartments with the hotel.

8) Connecting a family

Photo: Arquitectura en Movimiento Workshop/Dezeen Magazine
Photo: Arquitectura en Movimiento Workshop

The U-shaped staircase joins floors and different generations of one family in this Mumbai home. It was designed by Arquitectura en Movimiento Workshop of Mexico.

9) Modern meets stone farmhouse

Photo: architect Elisabete Saldanha/Dezeen Magazine
Photo: architect Elisabete Saldanha

Old and new can live in harmony as architect Elisabete Saldanha displays with this white spiral staircase in a converted stone farmhouse in Portugal.

10) Living Staircase

Photo: Paul Cocksedge Studio/Dezeen Magazine
Photo: Paul Cocksedge Studio

10. The Living Staircase was designed by Paul Cocksedge Studio to inspire creativity in this London SoHo office building.

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