The uncomfortable, inaccessible trend plaguing new buildings
If you have visited a new building on a college campus recently, or perhaps a new museum or library, you have no doubt encountered the so-called bleacher stair, a broad flight of steps that doubles as amphitheater-style seating.
Over the past decade or so, bleacher stairs have become a ubiquitous marker of contemporary public architecture.
It’s time for the trend to stop.
The origins of the fad can be traced to the opening of a New York outpost of the Italian fashion house Prada in December 2001.
The design of that store was the work of Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and featured a pair of zebrawood stairs — Koolhaas dubbed them “The Wave” — that could also be used for seating and display.
In The New York Times, critic Herbert Muschamp gushed over the design, writing that “time and space have revolved into miraculous alignment.”
Its subsequent proliferation serves as a good example of how avant-garde design, or at least a consumerist version of it, filters down to the mainstream.
The publicity generated by the star architect and his glamorous client inevitably attracted the attention of other architects, who have been doing their best to recapture that project’s magic, such as it was.
Soon enough, bleacher stairs were popping up all over the country, the trend only accelerating over time, the proverbial snowball rolling downhill.
The first bleacher stair I recall seeing in the Dallas area was at UT Dallas’ Arts and Technology Building, completed in 2013.
That same year, architecture firm HKS made a bleacher stair the centerpiece of its downtown offices.
More recently, the winning proposal for the expansion of the Dallas Museum of Art, by the Spanish architecture firm Nieto Sobejano, has two of them.
Bleacher stairs at (top row, from left) the Perez Art Museum Miami, the Massachusetts…
Bleacher stairs at (top row, from left) the Perez Art Museum Miami, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Toronto, (bottom row, from left) the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Glassell School of Art in Houston, and Boston University.(Mark Lamster / Mark Lamster)
Their popularity is understandable.
They look dramatic, signal an interest in fostering a sense of community — an essential goal for public institutions in the post-pandemic era — and satisfy two functions at once, turning circulation space into a place for public gathering.
For architects, they are an easy way to deliver a sense of monumental grandeur.
At the American Museum of Natural History’s recently opened Gilder Center, in New York, it is a bleacher stair — and not, say, a dinosaur skeleton or some other natural wonder — that greets visitors as they enter the Jeanne Gang-designed building.
The problem is that the bleacher stair’s virtues are more theoretical than practical.
Functionally, bleacher stairs are awkward at best; a stair is far from ideal as a seat back, and if there are no cushions (commonplace, in my experience) they can be exceedingly uncomfortable.
Conversation with more than one person is difficult, because everyone is pointed in the same direction and often at different levels.
Not surprisingly, they tend to be under-used.
“The sit-step stair is an all-in-one seating option that in the end is not ideal for anything, really,” says Colin Koop, a design partner in the New York office of the architecture firm SOM who often builds for educational institutions. “For large audiences, backless bleachers are uncomfortable almost immediately, leaving you aching for a proper seat. Meanwhile, on a daily basis, people would much rather sit at reading tables, banquettes or lounge seating.”
Beyond a lack of comfort, bleacher stairs present a variety of other problems.
They are an inefficient use of space and material, taking up large areas that could be more constructively used for gathering spaces and other functions.
Perhaps most troubling is that they are inaccessible and unwelcoming to anyone with mobility issues, and effectively segregate those individuals from the rest of the public.
“For me, they suggest that certain physical capacities such as climbing stairs are prerequisites for participating in public life and collective activities,” says architect David Gissen, author of the book The Architecture of Disability: Buildings, Cities, and Landscapes beyond Access.
“For a building to be truly accessible, it should not set up any unnecessary barriers,” architecture critic Alex Bozikovic wrote in a 2022 column on accessibility and design in The Globe and Mail of Toronto.
“People with disabilities should have the same experience of a building as anyone else.”
A bleacher stair alternative at MIT's Schwarzman College of Computing, design by Colin Koop…
A bleacher stair alternative at MIT's Schwarzman College of Computing, design by Colin Koop of SOM.(SOM / SOM)
A failure to accommodate those with disabilities is a moral failing, not to mention a potentially illegal one.
That issue was highlighted, recently, when city officials in New York City sued architect Steven Holl for failing to meet disability requirements with the Hunters Point branch of the Queens Public Library, where several levels of books could be reached only by stairs.
More egregious is the Vessel, Thomas Heatherwick’s tourist attraction at New York’s Hudson Yards, a 150-foot-tall basket of stairways largely inaccessible to anyone with mobility issues.
(After a rash of suicides, it has been closed for three years, though it will soon reopen.)
There are alternatives, and Koop’s recently opened Schwarzman College of Computing at MIT provides a good example, one that offers a compromise between the bleacher stair and more conventional steps.
To achieve that, Koop placed a lounge area with built-in seating between the parallel runs of a double stair, at once satisfying the demand for a ceremonial entry while providing a pleasant and accessible gathering space.
“Immediately on the inside you are confronted with a three-sided conversation pit designed to attract small groups, flanked by twin oak stairs,” Koop says. “Only above that does it start to resemble a sit-step, but even then it has a variety of benching to allow students to cluster together or sit alone.”
Gissen, for his part, would try a more out-there option, one that seems drawn from 1960s counter-culture.
“I think a giant mattress would be a more appropriate element with which to gather people together,” he says. “Many disabled people have called for cities to re-imagine rest as a public good, and I think it is important that we explore the possibilities.”
A giant public mattress might be a tough sell — though I’d like to see someone try it — but between that option and Koop’s more conventional approach at MIT, there is plenty of room for experimentation.
The broader point is that architects need to be more inventive as they plan new public spaces, and their patrons need to demand that those spaces are accessible for the entire population.
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City of Dallas, Will You Save Your Frank Lloyd Wright-Designed Theatre or Not?
Recently Mark Lamster, architecture critic for the Dallas Morning News wrote an article posted to the newspaper's website regarding the fate of Frank Lloyd Wright's 1959 Kalita Humphreys Theatre in Dallas, Texas. Lamster's report highlights maddeningly frustrating events that occur when municipal government gets involved in architectural restoration.
According Lamster, there have been no efforts to preserve the decaying the Kalita Humphreys Theatre in over a decade. The city hired "architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro and a team of preservation and theater consultants" to develop a $300 million plan for the Dallas Theater Center that would include restoring the Humphreys Theatre and building four additional structures. The plan was rejected not only by the City Council, but also by neighbors and supporters of the park into which the project would abut.
The Dallas Theater Center seems willing to scale back the project, but apparently, now the city isn't interested, so the scaled-back plan is currently been shelved as well. Lamster stated in his story, "the [Dallas Office of Arts and Culture] OAC has budgeted $7.63 million for repairs from its 2024 bond request" to the theater. Most of which would go to replace the aging HVAC system. Meanwhile, the theatre continues on its downward to deteriorate.
Read Mark Lamster's entire article on the Dallas Morning News website.
Frank Lloyd Wright, Kalita Humphreys Theatre (1959), Dallas, Texas. Photo © Massachusetts Institute of Technology, photograph by G. E. Kidder Smith. Image source.
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Adam Munnings | Dazed x Calvin Klein – OASIS from modest department on Vimeo.
We proudly present ‘OASIS’ by Adam Munnings in collaboration with Calvin Klein and Dazed
Titled Queer Lens, ‘OASIS’ is part of a series of short films exploring the idea of chosen family
and spotlighting a new generation of queer filmmakers from across the globe.
starring
Phoenix Chase-Meares, BlackPearl De Almeida Lima, Anna Deborah Disse, Alvin Collantes, Nosa Moses, Dornika Kazerani, Dana Pajarillaga, Riley Davidson, Matthias Ly, Aaron Pahrmann
Poem by Daniel Marin Medina
spoken by Riley Davidson
a modest dept. production powered by DAZED
Creative Director: Fred Paginton
Art Director: Alexander Venndt
Studio Editor: Louis Almond
Head of Production: Faye Young
Producer: Hetty Yoxall, Liam Healy
Senior Project Director: Morgane Kirk
Senior Project Manager: Kyle Singh
Director: Adam Munnings DOP: Marco Schott Editor: Gerrit Piechowski
Executive Producer: Johannes Lehmann
Head of Production: Benedikt Merten
Producer: Nikita Mikitin
Junior Producer: Badria-Lea Bader, Karina Tateosyan
1st AD: Phoenix Chase-Meares
Set-PA: Olivia Waligora
Cast Coordinator/Ethics Advisor: Felix Schütze
Photographer Talent Stills: Arnaud Ele
DOP Q+A: Kai Chase-Meares
Sound Engineer Q+A: Thor Rixon
Photographer BTS: Maks Klénov
Videographer BTS: Sol Astolfi
Choreographer: Johnny McMillan
Set Design: Tyoma Asatrian
Stylist: Halla Farhat
Styling Assistant: Diego Martinez, Rachel Colless
Handmade Jewellery: Zanhyang Song
Make-up Artist: Haneen Ajub, Susanna Jonas, Jesse Strikwerda
Make-up Assistant: Stella Chiara Kettermann
Hair Stylist: Taiga Sato, Anastasiia Tymoshchuk, Marie Berger Key Grip: Dennis Klemba
1st Assistant Camera: Florian Bellack 2nd Assistant Camera: Ksenia Gordiash Steadicam Operator: Lucas Heinze
Gaffer: Alan Waddingham
Best Boy: Kwame Boama
Best Girl: Laura Zeppelin
Electrican: Lenn Lamster
Pult Operator: Nick Beusterfeld
Swing Driver: Luc Brocker
Base Manager: Mustafa Aktasoglu
Location: Wilhelm Hallen & Oat Mil Studio // Katharina Koronowski & Sophie Pfuhler
Catering: Diana Quach
Post Producer: Felix Schütze
Editor TikTok: Yannic Nixdorf
Colorist: Florian Staerk
Music Composition/Sounddesign/Mix: Thor Rixon
Special thanks to
Wilhelm Hallen & Oat Mil Studio // Katharina Koronowski & Sophie Pfuhler Cinegate Berlin // Juri Maric
Raketa GmbH // Denny & TC
Cinegrell Berlin
and to queer chosen families.
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