Monumental & Feature Stairs

Feature stair vs egress stair

A required egress stair in a commercial building is governed by the BC Building Code and the Vancouver Building By-Law where applicable ([BC Building Code Part 3](https://free.bcpublications.ca/civix/document/id/public/bcbc2024/bcbc_2024dbp2s3), [VBBL](https://vancouver.ca/your-government/vancouver-building-bylaw.aspx)) — width, headroom, guard, fire-separation, and discharge requirements are non-negotiable. A monumental feature stair connecting two floors of an open lobby or atrium is often not a required egress stair, which gives the design team more latitude on geometry, open risers, guard system, and finish. The first decision on a feature-stair scope is always confirming whether it is a required exit or a non-required architectural stair.

• Required egress: code provisions dictate width, run, guard, fire separation, discharge.
• Non-required architectural stair: design intent dominates, code still applies to guards and slip.
• Mixed-use floors may force the architectural stair to also serve egress — confirm with the code consultant.

Structural strategy

Monumental stairs span large openings, often two storeys with no intermediate landing, and frequently have a curved or switchback geometry. Common structural strategies are an exposed pair of plate stringers (architectural twin-stringer), an exposed mono stringer for shorter runs, or a hidden steel truss inside a finished stringer enclosure for very long or curved runs. The decision is engineering-led; the architect proposes the visual, and the engineer confirms whether the strategy can carry the span and the live load.

Treads, finish, and detail-level fabrication

Tread material on a monumental stair is usually solid hardwood, stone, terrazzo, or steel — and each has a different dead-load implication for the stringer engineering. Slip resistance has to meet commercial occupancy requirements; on stone or terrazzo this is a nosing detail, on steel it is a finish step. Welds and finishes on a monumental stair are inspected at a higher standard than a typical commercial stair — the work is visible, often at eye level, and inspected in raking light from the lobby.

• Solid hardwood: warm-modern visual, finish supplier coordinated separately from steel.
• Stone or terrazzo: heaviest dead load, longest schedule, anchored to a steel sub-tread.
• Solid steel: tightest weld and grind tolerance, blackened or powder-coat finish.

Guards and railings

Commercial monumental stairs almost always use a structural glass guard or a glass-with-cap-rail system. The glass is engineered as the guard against the BC Building Code commercial guard loads. Cable railings are used less often on commercial monumental stairs because the open-cable visual can read residential. Steel picket and rod work is used where the design brief calls for an architectural metal aesthetic. The handrail return at top and bottom is a code-compliance detail that has to be drawn before fabrication.

Schedule and coordination

A monumental stair on a commercial project usually shows up in the schedule as its own package with its own sealed shop drawings, structural review, fire-separation review (if it penetrates a fire-rated assembly), and finish-coordination meetings. The stair install is sequenced after structural steel is topped out and before interior fit-out begins around the stair. In our shop we treat the monumental stair as a stand-alone delivery package, not part of the general fabrication scope.