Container Staircase
Container Staircase
A staircase for Southbank Centre in London commissioned as part of the Festival of Britain 60th Anniversary Festival.
The staircase has opened up a new route through the site, created planted terraces from which to view the square below and places for people to sit. Water pumped from the ventilation system in the adjacent Royal Festival Hall is diverted through the staircase and circulated with a hydraulic ram pump to irrigate a planting scheme.
Designed as a temporary installation the material palette celebrates an architecture of borrowing, re-purposing and adapting mass-produced objects. We used shipping containers, pallets and reclaimed wood and left steel unpainted so that they could all be returned to the ‘market’ once we had finished with them. Designed originally for 4 months the staircase has been there for 7 years.
Structural Engineering by Price and Myers
