The staircases will be one of the main public accesses through the centre of the building, past the first floor commercial office space, two floors of artists’ studios and to the top floor public art galleries, viewing box and roof terrace. Each floor will be joined by four sets of staircases crossing on landings in the middle of each floor, meaning that there are 16 flights of stairs to be installed in total.
The concrete stairs are made in blocks of three or four steps by Ebor in Ripon and the concrete landings by Spancast in Bedlington. The stairs and landings are supported by structural steelwork, fabricated by Carmel in Darlington
The scissor staircase feature was designed by architects Jabornegg and Palffy to complete the centre of the horseshoe shaped building formerly the Wards print warehouse. They will form one of the architectural centrepieces of Waygood’s new building.
Passersby on High Bridge can follow the progress of the development of the building. Documentary photographs of the site taken by Katy Merrington, Debbie Bower and Sarah Bayliss are shown on the screens in the window of 31 High Bridge, from 10am to 10pm daily.
