Some stairway designs also add a unique style to the newels – the handrail supporting posts at the start and end of the stairway.

Having reread it, it's safe to say that my memory of the book wasn't quite accurate, but it's a story that seems to have held up over time, quite well. The experiment is just as disturbing now as I remember it being. There are certain points--where Lola is working with Peter and his trances--that were a little obvious, but, then, I'm reading the book as a 33 year-old adult who is more than passingly familiar with the idea of Pavlovian responses. I suspect that 16 year-old me probably appreciated seeing the other side of the training. Other stairs handrail ideas include smooth aluminum (usually combined with solid glass railing), a rounded metal rail (combined with metal spindles) and all-glass designs where there is no distinct handrail. Staircase specialist: If you decide to buy your staircase through a specialist staircase company it is likely they will be able to guide you when it comes to a design, taking your through your configuration and material options and coming up with several staircase design options.A minimum staircase width of 600mm is recommended for secondary staircases. The Best Place For a Staircase Five strangers - all orphans, all sixteen years of age - are released, blindfolded, into a mammoth gleaming white room full of stairs. They find each other and congregate around a machine that dispenses food upon correct behavioural patterns. Soon they are slaves to this machine, searching for the correct patterns, doing whatever they have to do to be fed. What follows is your classic deterioration of human nature.

Between conversations like this, the screen begins to train the kids to dance upon command, giving them just enough food to survive, not enough to satisfy. (And almost certainly not enough to prevent them from getting various vitamin deficiencies—the food served is meat, and the book never mentions other substances, but does mention that none of the kids are looking all that well.)What's the stringer height? It's equal to the total rise in the case of a flush mount, and to total rise - rise in the case of a standard mount.

Even though it's not explicitly defined in every building code, you should make sure that the space below the railing is small enough that a child can't squeeze through it and fall (for example, a 4" diameter sphere is not allowed to pass through).

The stairway is not just about rails and spindles. If there is a wall along the staircase, it is a great place to add family photographs and art. They provide a nice distraction from the arduous journey up. House of Stairs is a lithograph print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher first printed in November 1951. This print measures 47cm ×24cm ( 18 + 5⁄ 8in × 9 + 3⁄ 8in). It depicts the interior of a tall structure crisscrossed with stairs and doorways.

House of Stairs (1974), a science fiction novel by William Sleator, takes place mostly in the peculiar setting of a house of stairs, resembling the visual paradox of the same name designed by M.C. Escher. It follows five teenaged orphans who are abducted and placed in the house of stairs as an unethical experiment in social dynamics. The teenagers band together to find out the truth about the place where they are being held in captivity. The book is well known in the sci-fi genre for its unique take on a futuristic dystopian society, posing one possible outcome of a government that exploits its people, but also vindicating the inherent goodness of humans as the teenagers learn to work together. A major weakness in HOUSE OF STAIRS, however, is its depiction of the villains, Oliver and Blossom. They do not change in any way because both are calculating, cruel, and self-absorbed from the beginning. Though the machine rewards their cruel actions, it does not corrupt them: Oliver and Blosson are already monstrous. The privileged daughter of government officials, obese Blossom seeks only to make the machine produce as much food as possible and spitefully to turn the other children against one another. At the beginning, Oliver sets out to shame and manipulate insecure, passive Abigail, alternately treating her seductively and indifferently. Because most of us justify evil actions with self-deceptions and rationalizations, I found Oliver and Blossom’s single-mindedness wooden and unbelievable. A YA writer who specializes in science fiction, Sleator has written his fair share of strange, fantastic and sometimes disturbing books. Of all the ones I've read, this book is probably the one that creeped me out the most. In general, the best place for the base of a staircase is viewed as being somewhere near to the front door. It is also preferable not have to cross another room to reach the stairs from the front door.In fact, this is vital if there is a third storey to the house, as the stairs will have to act as a fire escape route. The story is told largely from the point of view of Peter, a boy who has been labeled as slightly slow. He tends to follow authority. The others are Lola, a rebellious juvenile delinquent who doesn't trust anyone; Blossom, an overweight, spoiled girl who grew up in pampered wealth but who has recently been orphaned; Oliver, a generous, self-confident, and arrogant athlete who has always been successful and popular; and Abigail, a pretty girl who is shy and kind but is easily misguided, and worries about what others think of her. Peter is in awe of Oliver, who resembles a close friend he once had, but he bonds with Lola, who takes a protective stance toward him from the beginning.From there it gets only worse. They soon discover that the dance isn't enough. The infighting that comes naturally becomes essential to their survival, for only when they are cruel or greedy will the machine start flashing its lights and entice them to dance. The question then becomes whether or not the kids will do as the machine wishes, and how long they can hold out against it. Or if they will. Wooden staircases for traditional homes tend to be characterised by their substantial nature, rounded stair nosing, turned balusters and carved newel posts. However, timber can also be used in contemporary staircase design where it is often seen in the form of chunky wooden treads that cantilever out from a wall. For the procedures in underwater diving, see Ascending and descending (diving). Ascending and Descending