50 Horrible Staircase Designs That Are Just An Accident Waiting To Happen

Staircases lie at the crossroads of architecture and home design. They serve a meaningful and practical function and can serve as essential design elements, but as this aptly named Facebook group loves to point out, horrible staircase designs can also be downright deadly without the appropriate safety considerations.

It takes some talent and creativity to make stairs that are as unsafe as some of the masterpieces on this list. Some seem uncomfortable, while others present apparent tripping hazards or even fool the eyes into hiding individual steps. In the comments, let us know which one of these horrible staircase designs you think you’d trip on. (H/T)

01. The Staircase You Take An Enemy Down

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02. When The House Lights Go Down, Good Luck

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03. Do They Know That Wheelchair Users Don’t Normally Bunny Hop?

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Stairs may seem deceptively simple at first. How hard is it to design a set of stairs? Make a bunch of steps, and you’ve got it, right? Not quite. In addition to any architectural regulations, some basic geometric rules should be followed.

04. Left, Picture Of Stairs From Top-The Wood Planks Run Parallel To Stair Edges Seemingly Forming A Flat Surface. Right, Steps Viewed From Bottom After Fall

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05. This Made My Stomach Swoop

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06. The ‘Stairs Of Death’ Are A Section Of Stone Steps Built By The Incas, Which Lead To The Top Of Huayna Picchu, In Peru, Which Is One Of The Steep Mountains That Overlooks Machu Picchu

The mountain’s peak is 2,693 meters above sea level and has Inca ruins. You couldn’t pay me a billion dollars to walk up that.

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A standard step’s ideal rise and run is 7″ rise and 11″ run (~18cm x ~25cm). However, other ratios are possible for different types of steps. Many sites online break down the rules of stair design, and that’s all before you get into the fancy ideas highlighted in this post.

07. I Just Fell In My Mind, And It Sounded Like Someone Hitting A Gong In A Very Uncoordinated Way

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08. I Want To See Someone Try This In Heels

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09. Yeah, That Is A One-Story Home For Me

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Fortunately, most jurisdictions have some stairs requirements, and we suspect they haven’t been followed in many of these examples. In addition to rising over run requirements, step and stair regulations may determine banister shape and height, step edge shapes, step layout, rotation characteristics for steps that turn, and other factors – all of which can determine how likely it is for a set of steps to cause accidents.

10. “Stairs” Designed By Francesco Librizzi. It’s More Of A Treacherous Ladder. I’d Consider Going Up These. I would Not Be Interested In Going Down Them

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11. A Set Of Steep Stairs. Each Step Alternates, So You Can Only Really Put One Foot On A Step At A Time. It’s Also Nearly A Straight Down Angle

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12. Oh No, I’ll Jump; Thanks

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13. An Unusual Cuboidal Stairway In The Little Village San Augustin Etla, Oaxaca, Mexico (Vernacular Architecture). They Are Made Out Of Red Stone And In Six Alternating Columns. The Ankle Twister

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14. I Can Already Feel The Concussion

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15. My Shins Hurt Looking At This

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16. When You Don’t Have Enough Space For Stairs! Brilliant Child-Friendly Space With An Observatory Tower Incorporated By Arch. Hiroshi Okamoto

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17. Stairs For People Who Aren’t Afraid To Die And Who Enjoy The Nauseating Feeling Of Vertigo

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18. Sthairs – One Of The Horrible Staircase Designs

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19. I Love My New Apartment, But These Are The Stairs Leading Up To The Loft. They Feel More Like A Ladder Because Of How Steep They Are. Don’t Get Me Started On How We’re Going To Move Furniture Up There

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20. Honey, What’s Wrong? You Haven’t Gone Down The Stairs Slide Today

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21. Don’t Roll An Ankle Or Anything

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22. My Online Civil Engineer Major Is Starting To Pay Off, Another Satisfied Customer

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23. The Spiral Staircase In Wharton Esherick’s Home And Studio, 1930.

Photo Credit: ©LeslieWilliamson from Handcrafted Modern, Rizzoli, 2010.

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24. When Aesthetics Lead To Bad Design Hazards

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25. I Would Like To Have A Word With The Architect Of This Building

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26. I Would Like To Have A Word With The Architect Of This Building

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27. My Wife Took This Picture From The Loft Of Her Airbnb

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28. It’s Beautiful, But One Of The Horrible Staircase Designs

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29. Do These Count? They Are In My Son’s Room, BTW, And I Quite Like Them

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30. The ‘V’ In The Design Is For Very Dangerous

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31. Stone Stairs With Glass Handrail Leading To A Steep Drop

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32. Oh, Well – Found Another Member Of Horrible Staircase Designs

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33. Staircase Designed By People With Two Feet. I Hate These Things At My Gym

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34. Don’t Ask Me How, But I Haven’t Busted My Butt On These Yet

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35. Only A Stair In The Loosest Sense, A Clean White Tiled Ordinary-Looking Men’s Bathroom Has An Unusual Vertical Access Method

The first two urials are at standard height for your average male genitalia. However, the third pee depositary looms above 2 inches from the ceiling. Its bowl is, almost defiant, orientated towards the ceiling. Indeed only a giant whose legs are 90% of his height would be able to take advantage of such a piece of plumbing unaided.

What vertical assistance is available to our average man? A staircase, perhaps? A ladder? Leading up to the bowl are five red rock climbing handholds. The lowest is placed at heights that a toddler could access, and the tallest one at perhaps at head height. At the urinal, no such holds exist besides the gas heater pipes. What type of multilegged creature can access such a waste disposal method boggles the mind. Perhaps the building developers had Spiderman as their target market.

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36. Two Levels Of Stairs In What Looks To Be A Highly Trafficked Area, Where The Center Railing Connects To The Left Side Of The Second Set Of Stairs. Thus Completely Blocking Off Entry From The Left Side Of The Stairs

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37. A Set Of Stairs That Leads Up Into The Second Floor But Also Partially Leads Up To Nothingness As The Houses Walls Were Built Into It. Perfect For A Fairy Shelf

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38. Specially Engineered To Promote Faceplants

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39. Go Off Tim Burton

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40. Imagine Having To Run Through These During A Fire

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41. A Staircase Passing Through A Counter… And Using The Top Of The Counter As A Step

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42. Found These Stairs In A” Luxury” House Listing In Croatia. The Price For This House Is 1.2m €!

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43. Sudden Case Of Wall

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44. Stairs With Similarly Colored Tiles, No Hand Rail, And A Glass Wall… In A Beach Town Where Our Feet Were Regularly Wet. Almost Died A Few Times

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45. One-Way Ticket To A Stubbed Toe

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46. Imagine Being Half Asleep And Just Needing To Pee

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47. The Backrooms

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48. I Live In A House Built Sometime Before 1855. These Are The Only Stairs From The First Floor To The Second Floor

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49. I Work In Lighthouses. These Aren’t The Worst I’ve Come Across. They Lull You Into A False Sense Of Safety, Thinking They Are Stairs, But They Need To Be Used Like A Ladder. Can Barely Fit Your Heels On The Step If Facing Downwards

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50. Everyday You Can Rearrange The Shelves!

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Up and down them several times a day, we don’t always see our functional staircases as a beautiful interior design element. However, using proper imagination and calculation, this valuable home part can become the most showstopping piece to an interior.

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