Portobello Stair

Retrofit & conversion

The villa had been split into flats in the 1960s and the stair had gone with the split. Rejoining the house meant putting a stair back where the plan wanted one, which was not where the old one had been.

The new stair is nine precast flights, each cast in one piece and craned in through the roof before the rooflight went on. They land on steel stringers hidden in the wall thickness, so the flights appear to float off the plaster. The well is lit from above only, and the light gets warmer as it goes down because the treads are a pale sand-coloured concrete.

It is the smallest project on this page and the one I get asked about most.

Project info

Location: Portobello, Edinburgh
Year: 2024
Area: 26 m² (intervention)
Structure: Precast concrete flights on steel stringers
Status: Complete

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