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Building components · Stairs & Level Change

Stair Landing

Explains the landing as a structural platform within the stair rather than as a piece of the floor it happens to sit near, and shows why it is the element a flight's geometry is set out from.

Form:Board or sheetRoles:StructureSupportSubstrate

Educational reference entry. What this element has to do, and whether any particular arrangement of it is adequate, depends on the whole assembly, the loading, the exposure, local requirements, the manufacturer's instructions and qualified professional design.

Overview

What a landing is

A stair landing is a level platform within a stair: at the top of a flight, at the bottom, or between two flights where the stair changes direction. It breaks the rise into parts and gives the flights either side something to bear on and something to be set out from.

It is a structural element in its own right, not a leftover piece of floor. A half landing between two flights takes the head of the flight below and the foot of the flight above, and it usually has to reach a wall or a frame in its own right to do so. Because both flights are set out from it, its level is the datum that decides whether the steps above and below come out consistent.

Boundaries

How it differs from nearby elements

The distinctions that keep this entry from being a restatement of its neighbours.

  • It is not a floor. A floor is a continuous plane serving occupied space and is set out from the storey it belongs to; a landing belongs to the stair, may sit between storeys, and exists to receive flights rather than to be occupied.
  • It is not a structural deck. A deck is the spanning surface that turns spaced members into a continuous floor plane; a landing is a small discrete platform whose defining job is to terminate one flight and begin another.
  • It is not a tread. A tread is one step in the rhythm of a flight; a landing deliberately interrupts that rhythm, and treating a landing as an oversized step is the misreading that produces an uncomfortable stair.

Terminology

Common names and aliases

These names describe the same element. The library keeps one entry per component so that a trade term or a regional name never becomes a second, thinner page.

  • half landing
  • quarter landing
  • mid-flight landing
  • stair platform

Dependencies

What it depends on

What has to be right elsewhere for this element to do its job.

  • What supports it — walls, a frame, the flights themselves or a combination — since a mid-height landing has no storey structure available to it.
  • Its level, because both flights meeting it are set out from that level and an error in it propagates into every step above and below.
  • How much of it is clear of the flights arriving and leaving, which governs whether the change of direction can be made at all.
  • Whether anything else is asked of it — a door opening onto it, a guarding along its open edge, a service route through it — each of which constrains the same small platform.

Considerations

Topics that genuinely apply here

Subjects worth discussing about this element. These are discussion topics, never measured values, ratings or performance claims.

Structural transfer

A landing collects the reactions of the flights meeting it and has to deliver them somewhere, which at mid-storey height commonly means reaching a wall or a frame rather than a floor.

Tolerance & fit

The landing is the datum for the flights either side, so its level is the single measurement that most strongly determines whether the finished steps are consistent.

Buildability

Landings are commonly formed early and finished late, which means they take site traffic and act as a working platform long before they are the thing they were designed to be.

Acoustic

A landing is a junction between the stair and the structure around it, and a junction of that kind is a route for sound between the two unless it is designed otherwise.

Materials

Commonly formed from

Material families this element is commonly realised in. This states common practice only — it is not a statement that any of these materials suits this component in a particular building, which depends on the whole assembly and on qualified review.

Materials LibraryStructural softwood →A timber landing is framed much like a small floor, with its own supporting members.Materials LibraryReinforced concrete →Cast landings are the common form where the stair is part of a concrete structure and the flights are cast too.Materials LibraryPrecast concrete panels →Precast landing units are met where flights and landings are delivered as manufactured pieces and assembled on site.Materials LibraryCross-laminated timber →Encountered where the surrounding structure is panel timber and the landing is formed from the same panel family.

Assemblies

Building systems this element is met in

The role this component fills inside each assembly. A role describes what the element does there — it is not a statement that this component suits that system in any particular building.

Primary supportTimber Joisted Upper Floor →A timber landing is framed and trimmed in the same way as the floor it adjoins, and carries the flights meeting it.Primary supportConcrete Frame →Cast landings span to the frame or to the walls around the stair and receive the flights either side.Primary supportSteel Frame →A framed landing platform carried by the steel structure, to which the flights above and below are connected.Primary supportMezzanine Structure →Where access to a mezzanine turns, the landing carries both flights and is supported from the mezzanine structure or independently.

Related elements

Neighbouring components

Typed relationships to other elements. There is deliberately no generic “related” category: an edge that cannot be classified does not exist.

Clarifications

Commonly misunderstood

  • That a landing is part of the floor it adjoins. A half landing sits between storeys and belongs to the stair, and its support has to be arranged for it specifically.
  • That a landing is simply a wide step. It is a level platform that interrupts the rise, and it is set out and supported differently from the steps either side of it.

Conversations

Questions for qualified professionals

Questions worth asking someone with the project in front of them. This page cannot answer them.

  • What supports this landing, and does that support exist independently of the flights arriving at it?
  • What level has the landing been set to, and how were the flights above and below set out from it?
  • Does anything open onto the landing, and how does that interact with the flights arriving and leaving?
  • Where a stair is being altered, what is the landing bearing on and has that been surveyed rather than assumed?

Go deeper

Related Build Design Hub guides

Planning guidance behind the decisions this element involves.

Preparation

Related planning checklists

Owner-side preparation before the conversation where this element comes up.

What this entry does not do

  • This entry describes a position within a stair. It states no landing size, level, clear width, headroom, load capacity or fire rating, and none can be inferred from it.
  • Whether a landing arrangement satisfies escape, access or structural requirements is a design determination made against local requirements and by qualified professionals.

Stair & Level Change Elements

The positions that make up a stair and the elements that carry people safely between levels — treads, risers, the members beneath them, and the guarding at the edge.

Browse all stairs & level change entries →