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People in glass houses shouldn’t …wear dresses? The new $105 million Franklin County, Ohio courthouse opened this week and the women who will work there were surprised to see it has a staircase made of glass. Franklin County Judge Julie Lynch speculated that the staircase was designed by men, who didn’t consider that women in dresses would use them.
Attorney Lori Johnson was startled by the transparent stairs. She worries not only about stares, but also how many cell phones have cameras attached.
“The next thing you know, you’re on the internet,” Johnson said, according to 10TV. “It sounds like a lawsuit in the making.”
While security guards warn women about taking the stairs, it seems most are just hoping people will be mature about the situation.
Good luck with that. Link -via Boing Boing
When the Apple store on Fifth Avenue in New York had a broken step in their glass spiral staircase replaced, Mark Burstiner asked for, and received the old step from the repair crew. Over a year later, he put it up for sale on eBay. Then he was contacted by a VP from Seele, the staircase manufacturer. The VP told him Apple was very unhappy and asked him to pull the auction. Burstiner stopped the auction, but then the Seele representative called him again and demanded that he return the step!
What this sounds like to me is Seele trying to save face because Apple is furious that they were irresponsible enough to relinquish ownership of the tread. Though it may be embarrassing for both corporations, it may simply be a lesson learned at a high price. Let me put it this way: If you caught a foul ball at a World Series game, got it signed by a player, received a high five from the security guard on the way out of the stadium, and went home, that ball is now yours, right? It started as one entity?s property, and through a series of consensual transactions, it ended up in your hands. Now, let?s say a year and a half later, the player who signed it is huge, and you decide to put it up for auction. If the MLB reached out to you and said, “Hey! No way, buddy. That was OURS. Hand it over!” Guess what? That wouldn’t fly.
Burstiner put the step back up on eBay. No doubt publicity about the case brought more bids to the auction, which is at $6,300 at the time of this post. Link to story. Link to auction.
There is something mysterious and intriguing about spiral staircases. Atlas Obscura looks at some of the most magnificent spiral staircases in the world, with lovely pictures and facts you might not know. For example, the staircase at the Vatican Museum, pictured here, is actually a double helix, with one staircase going up and the other coming down. Link -via Curious Expeditions
This Volkswagen commercial is about one effort to get people to take the stairs instead of the escalator (presumably for the exercise). The company turned a staircase at a Stockholm subway station into a piano and videotaped how travelers responded.
via Urlesque | Commercial Credits
Don’t let my kids see this: London architect Alex Michaelis has slide next to his staircase! Laura Housley of Cookie Magazine has the story:
Not that there aren’t plenty of kids’ diversions elsewhere, including the climbing wall outside and the slide that runs alongside the staircase. "We tend to have a lot of the kids’ friends around—they’re here perhaps more than at some of the other parents’ homes," Michaelis says, adding that even grown-ups can’t resist skipping the stairs. "We’ve been known after a big dinner party to use the slide."
Color me envious: Link | Photo gallery of the house (Here’s the slide) – via Bloesem Kids
