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CNC Cut Paddle Ladder

This is the staircase I designed for the barge which I live on. Paddle ladders are a space saving stair design and are often used in boats and other small spaces. I collected images of other designs on a Pinterest page before drawing out the dimensions of the full rise in sketch up. An individual step should rise somewhere between 150mm and 220mm. Each tread should be 220mm wide minimum. The stairs will feel natural to use if they fit within these parameters, there is also a safety element to consider as an unnatural staircase can subtly confuse the user making them unsafe to use. Following these design rules and with these other concepts as inspiration, I set out with the idea of making the stairs in layers of 18mm birch ply, sacked and glued into shape. The final design was reached through trial and error.

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Examples collected on a Pinterest board

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By messing around with different shapes and ideas the design progresses

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The design was conceived in sketchup software which I find ideal for quickly getting down ideas. I then had to redraw in Autodesk Inventor to be able to produce perfect curves and export to DXF format. The final layout was set on V Carve before being CNC cut.

 

The finished design only uses two different shapes for the main rise, which flip to create the left and right step. In theory this design could work for a much longer staircase. 

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I like the woven, rope-like effect of the steps intertwining, and the way the risers of all the steps blend in to each other. I think the finished staircase is natural and organic looking almost like a sea shell. 

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Just two shapes form the main rise

Design software used: SketchUp, Autodesk Inventor, V Carve

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