Jack (Xu) Han

Stair as space is an architectural proposition that challenges the conventional treatment of the stair as mere infrastructure. This thesis repositions the stair as a spatial medium that facilitates vertical circulation, generates form, organizes program, and frames perception. The stair becomes a lived experience, a sequence, and a structure in itself.

This investigation draws from Adolf Loos’ Villa Müller (1930), where the stair plays a central role in articulating Loos’ Raumplan. Through subtle shifts in elevation and compressed or expanded landings, Loos constructs a spatial narrative where rooms are not stacked, but interwoven—each connected by carefully modulated movement. The stair in Villa Müller is not transitional, but transformational.

Building on this precedent, the project proposes a single-stair housing typology in which one continuous stair defines the entire architectural experience. Space unfolds along the stairs’ path—rooms emerge from its landings, elevation shifts mark thresholds, and views are carefully orchestrated through the stairs’ ascent and descent.

Concrete block construction is employed as both a method and metaphor. Its modularity and mass offer a material counterpoint to the fluidity of movement, anchoring the stair’s progression with weight and rhythm. The tactile, additive logic of concrete block becomes a means to frame space—revealing how construction, circulation, and inhabitation can be understood as one spatial act.