Landings in Stairs – Purpose, Location and Standard Dimensions

What is a Stair Landing?

Landings in a stair is a level floor or platform constructed at a location where the direction of stairs changes, between flights of the stair, or at the top of stair flight.

The locations of landings in a stair is shown in Figure 1, Figure 2 and Figure 3.

Fig.1: Landing is provided between flights of a stair

Fig.2: Stair landing at the top between and bottom of stair flights

Fig.3: Landing is provided when the direction of stair changes

What is the Purpose of Stair Landing?

•  Stair landing is provided to permits stairs to change directions, Figure 4.
•  Another purpose of stair landing provision is to allow occupants to rest.

Fig.4: Landing provided to allow stairway to change its direction

What are the cases in which stair landings are needed?

•  Stair landing should be provided at the top and bottom of each flight of exterior and interior stairs.
•  Stair landing is needed where a doorway at the top of stair flight swings toward the stair, Figure 5 and Figure 6.

Fig.5: Doorway swing on landing of stairway

Fig.6: Doorway opens on toward the stairway

•  For stairways with straight run that have an overall rise greater than 3.65m, an intermediate landing should be provided.

What the cases in which stair landing can be omitted?

•  If a doorway that located at the top of a stair in a dwelling unit is swing away from the stair, then landing is not required between the stair and the door.
•  It is possible to omit landing at the top of a stair serving a secondary entrance to a single dwelling unit provided that the stair does not have more than three rises and the door is sliding or swing away from the stair.
•  Landing stair can be neglected at the bottom of an exterior stair provided that there are no obstruction within a lesser of stair width or 900mm for stair serving single unit and 1100mm for stair not serving a single dwelling unit.

What are the standard dimensions of stair landing?

 The width of landing should not be smaller than the width of stairway they serve as illustrated in Figure 7.

Fig.7: Width of landing determined based on the stairway they serve

•  The dimension of landing in the direction of travelling should be at least equal to the width of the stair and it should not surpass 1219mm where the stairway is a straight run.
•  When a door is opened on the landing, it should not reduce the landing smaller than half of required width. Added to that, when the door is opened completely, it should not project greater than 178mm on the landing.
•  If wheelchair spaces are required on stairway landing, it should not be located with the required dimension of the landing and doors must not swing over the wheelchair space.