Kinesthetics of a Staircase

Kinesthesia is a significant factor while creating an awareness for the spaces through which we move and align our bodies, maintaining a dynamic equilibrium as we navigate the transitional spaces that are the entrances, the corridors, and the staircase. The kinesthetic experience is our capacity to move and grasp three dimensionally and is a manifestation of our experience with the building. And the stair is an oblique function; the wall becomes a tilted floor which then can be “experienced.” The slope takes an effort to climb; the body feels these degrees of inclination and this experience cannot be isolated from this space. A level difference when brought down to a human scale that can be navigated is essentially the tread and the riser. Making not just the vertical but the horizontal movement part of the ascent. Stairs not only propose a movement but choreograph it. Encouraging the user to move in a certain way, adopt certain positions, balance our body, or incessantly move through the steps and levels. It is a multisensory experience that evokes certain emotions. Defining the essence of the stairs instead of merely exploring its fragmented attributes will not only help to understand the stairs but architecture as well. The inherent nature of the staircases’ sensitivity to the scale brings about changes in the form of the stair which then affects the activities that take place there due to the change in how we then perceive the stair and the movement associated with it and thus reflecting on human activities through this lens. Stairs, in itself, is a movement, a pause and an encounter becoming a kinesthetic experience in itself.