Design firm Nervous System, has created an artistic staircase railing for their new studio building in Palenville, New York, that was inspired by cross-sections of plant tissues.
The laser-cut steel design was algorithmically-generated, with a pattern that morphs continuously along the 40 ft (12.2 m) long railing, moving through different modes of the pattern.
The designers explain, “Beginning at the bottom of the staircase, waves of dense cells shift into rings, then spirals and finally to large scale radial cells. The patterns recall morphologies seen in cross-sections of plant tissues.”
Here’s a look at the railing pattern that was generated by the latest version of Nervous System’s Corollaria software, which uses an optimization process of anisotropic centroidal Voronoi diagrams. The cells optimize their distribution in response to a morphic background metric.
The railing, which was cut by Hatfield Metal Fabrication, is made of 10 gauge steel in powder-coated matte black. To make it easier to install, the design was sectioned into 6 panels, one of which is bent to create the corner.
Finishing the staircase is a wood top rail, that constructed from laser cut wood pieces that were laminated into one long piece, using dowels to align the sections together.
