Page 87 - Winter_2018

ArchDC Winter 2018.qxp_Winter 2018 11/27/18 9:42 AM Page 85

Stair seen from below. Second floor landing. Photos © reform llc

Washingtonian Honorable Mention for Detail Paired, and fixed at the top
and bottom, these poplar boards
Stair_Screen splay out from each other on
Arlington, VA their way down the stairs, with
each board joining with its
reform llc neighbor at a vertical midpoint
before bending back to its origi-
Fabrication/Assembly/Installation: reform llc
nal partner. “When all those
pieces were fixed at their specific
Looking to build continuity within an Arlington, Virginia, raised-
pinch-points, the more pieces we
ranch house sited upon a hill, architecture firm reform llc saw an Staircase before renovation.
added, the more rigid the entire
opportunity to celebrate the link between upper and lower volumes
assembly became,” Boza said. “It’s more of a lattice in the end.”
by way of a stairway installation that exceeds basic functionality.
The effect is one of a porous linear screen, like paper accordion
Instead of installing an off-the-shelf handrail, the architects
packaging pulled apart so that you see more void than solid. The
selected linear lattice trim elements in poplar, and subjected them
taut lines at the extremities give way to more sinuous curves at the
to a series of rigorous bending tests to determine an arrangement
centers, with the variable lengths of the poplar elements producing
that would yield a satisfactory, code-compliant, structural assemblage
a lengthening aperture as they process down the stairs like a wooden
for the stair enclosure. “It’s a low-cost material assembled in a way
version of the famous 19th-century stroboscopic photographs by
that transforms it beyond its more banal state,” reform principal
Eadweard Muybridge—both static and fluid simultaneously.
Luis Boza, AIA, NCARB, said.
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