Thursday, March 19, 2009

Do they really want us to use the stairs?

The people in charge of our health tell us we should use stairs whenever we can . [Examples]

Meanwhile, the people in charge of our buildings make staircases so ugly they must assume that nobody who matters ever uses them.

The building this staircase is in has marble flooring at the main entrance. The elevators have tinted mirrors and buffed metal trim.

And this is the main staircase. Not the emergency backup stairs.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

those stairs look REALLY well used!

Anonymous said...

I did a blog post on this once ages ago. Public Health Agency Canada once had a "Stairway to Health" pilot project to beautify stairwells and encourage people to use them. One of the pilots was at the University of Ottawa's Heart Institute, one at the Ministry of Health in Victoria and one at Saint John City Hall. Stats Canada at Tunney's Pasture started their own program and so did Nortel. I wonder whatever became of all these good intentions? I never saw any follow-up

Dana Lee Ling said...

With no buildings over three stories tall, and only two which are three stories tall, the stairs to health concept is a non-starter out here. Unless one wants to go up and down a single story repeatedly. Hills, however, we have in abundance.

Anonymous said...

These stairs remind me of the ones at the parking lot at Rideau Mall, except its missing a bum or two as well as graffiti.:P. Yeah, not overly inviting.

Hawkeye said...

Great observation. It would be interesting/depressing to do a photo exhibit of stairways across the city. Lack of care in design almost makes space as unusable as lack of function. My stairs set off my "Danger! Potential Rape Area!" alarms.

That said, you are lucky you are allowed to use the stairs. My building seems to work extra hard to prevent their use.