Changes In Stair Design Could Help Fight Obesity

> make stairs more comfortable and inviting for example, making staircases wider with less height per step and adding music

Everyone I know takes stairs 2 steps at a time decreasing the height would just add unnecessary expansions and make the stairs a very slow (already pretty slow if you are going up more than a few floors).

From my experience staircases that are a part of the building as much as an elevator where you don't have to open a door to get to them get used quite often.

Yikes, yet another set of regulations for stairs! There are already soo many, and the idea of mandating reduced riser height in the stair has serious implications for many buildings with confined areas as this means more treads will be required and thus more overall area taken out of the building for stairs. I am, however, a big fan of using stairs, but the reality of the fire codes and the function of the code necessitates fire rated walls and doors. Making the interior of the stair nicer would be great (owner would have to pay extra) and locating the stair more conveniently is also good - but codes do have impact on that decision as well as fire stairs have to exit the building directly at the base, etc.

That's not quite what I was expecting--widening stairs and lowering the slope would actually improve safety, as well. I've seen enough against-code stairs that were a positive hazard to everybody involved to get automatically antsy whenever I see somebody suggesting changing them, but this is fine from a safety POV.

It's in accordance with my experience at uni, too; everywhere that had obvious stairs would have people using them in preference to elevators, but if they're both behind doors (and the extremely industrial staircases you get in some institutional buildings don't help this) it seems like the mental effort is the same, so people wait for the elevator.

I see the point of the article, but it's sort of like saying that if you only sell bland tasting food at the supermarket, you'll make people stop eating as much. And they'll be healthier! Sacrificing the accessibility/ease of use of a building to "fight obesity" seems interesting but not a sacrifice I'd be willing to make if I were an architect.

Forcing people to take the stairs by making "legislative" and architectural changes is not the solution to the problem. The solution is to help people change their habits.

The idea of forcing people to take the stairs to fight obesity is currently a running experiment at the new San Francisco Federal Building.

Results are mixed, see i.e. http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=5428

From the article:

According to my source, architect Mayne has stated that federal office workers do not get enough exercise. To address this, he installed elevators in the building that only stop at every third floor. This requires employees to walk up or down one or two flights of metal stairs.

Persons with physical disabilities who cannot use stairs can use a separate elevator that stops at every floor. The foreseeable result is that employees seeking to avoid stairs use the disabled access elevator, leaving this car crammed with people and making the ride to the top extremely slow.

"Some simple interventions can do much toward encouraging people to take the stairs, research suggests. For example, a study performed at a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention building found that playing music in stairwells and displaying motivational signs significantly increased the use of stairs."

Stairwell music?

Air conditioning would be nice. A stairwell in the sun can easily get over 100 degrees. Alternatively some insulation and natural airflow could probably achieve acceptable results.

Making stairwells more pleasant would be nice, but any stairways with too many additional features such as natural lighting would have to be constructed in addition to the fireproof stairs required by building codes, so I imagine that builders will continue to follow the path of least resistance and only provide unpleasant stairways.

Oh please. If you can't walk a little further and find the stairs and open a door you aren't going to climb 3 or for 4 flights. The lazy are lazy for a reason.

I think there are also Fire Code issues with stairwells. They can act as giant chimneys that create a draft which will accelerate a fire and spread it rapidly.

I'm here to announce my skepticism that the less than three round-trip circuits people take daily on a flight of stairs will have anything but negligible impact on their health.