Stoops across the UK and Europe are hiding a secret: the ability to zoom right into the front door on wheels even though it’s located several steps above the sidewalk. And it’s about time. At this point in human history, with all the technology at our fingertips, there’s no excuse for failing to build accessibility into our environments. A company called Sesame Access makes that easier than ever with a variety of cool mechanized wheelchair lifts concealed within ordinary-looking staircases.

The company has installed hundreds of these lifts into all sorts of buildings and structures, from the Kensington Palace to Cambridge University. Many of the buildings in which the lifts have been placed are centuries old, with historic facades and entries preservationists hoped to keep intact. The Sesame retractible staircase blends so well, you can hardly tell the spaces have been altered to make it easier for all guests to enter autonomously.

When the lift isn’t in use, the full width of the staircase is available for pedestrians. But if someone needs an alternative way to ascend, they simply push a button. The steps retract and a platform appears, elevating a guard rail to keep the guest secure while the platform rises. Sesame installs the mechanical elements of the system and leaves it up to the client’s contractors to clad the stairs however they wish, so they can get a perfect match to existing materials.

To see how this looks across a wide variety of applications, check out Sesame’s case studies. It’s a pretty cool way to get around the common objection that a given location can’t be made accessible because of its historic or design value.

When famous buildings are demolished, like famous Louis Sullivan structures in Chicago, there’s a scramble to collect all of the ornamental bits and pieces for preservation — yet fewer people stop to notice (or try to collect) when it comes to more functional components of these structures.

But when a set of old timber escalators were being removed from Wynyard Station in Sydney, Australia, someone saw an opportunity to put them on display. After 80 years of use, artist Chris Fox was asked to turn these 244 wooden steps into something new.

The resulting Interloop keeps the essence of their shape and function intact, intertwining and winding upward in a dizzying set of spirals and parallel paths. Passengers on newly installed escalators, elevators and stairs can now appreciate these pieces of history soaring above them. From below, the suspended sculpture seems to intertwine then disentangle — coming down the new escalators, the steady steps wrap into one another.

Per the artist, Interloop “hangs from [the] ceiling, hovering above the escalators that travel underground from York Street. The vast twisting accordion-shaped sculpture reconfigures the heritage escalators that once stood there in a stitched form.” The project is over 150 long and weighs five tons. Its shape is meant to form a kind of feedback loop, “referencing all those journeys passed and now interlooping back.”

Stairs are inherently utilitarian, but some architects choose to really step up their interiors with highly sculptural designs that make you want to walk up and down a bunch of times. Cantilevered creations, floating stairs, spirals made of stone and zig-zagging graphic designs add both literal and figurative movement to these apartments, museums, offices and shops.

Stone and Wire in London by Groupwork + Amin Taha

During the completion of a renovation on a terraced house in central London dating to the 1950s, Groupwork + Amin Taha created a gorgeous centerpiece with this stone staircase, spiraling around a central cylinder-shaped wire cage, which acts as a balustrade. The load-bearing cantilevered travertine staircase extends from the basement to a skylight in the apartment’s roof.

Atrium Stairs at Moscow’s Dominion Office Building by Zaha Hadid

There’s something very futuristic-looking about the stark, graphic black-and-white stairs zig-zagging through the atrium of Zaha Hadid’s ‘Dominion Office Building.’ Each level is slightly offset from the next, producing a disorienting effect when looking down at the stairs from the edge of any of the balconies.

Mirrored Staircase at Kaleidoscope House by Paul Raff Studio

Sometimes, all it takes is a little creativity to produce a stunning effect, rather than a large space and expensive materials. The staircase ascending through Paul Raff Studio’s Kaleidoscope House features mirrored side panels on the balustrade which continue onto the landings of each level, reflecting each other so you can’t quite tell what’s real and what’s reflection. This piece is the heart of the home’s ‘kaleidoscope effect.’

Plywood Puzzle Stairs in London House by Tsuruta Architects

This staircase in a London Home renovated by Tsuruta Architects consists of nearly 2,000 plywood pieces slotted together like a puzzle. Replacing a larger staircase with a more compact design, this new creation connects all four stories without visually obstructing the transitional spaces between them, allowing light to filter through.

Smooth Staircase at Singapore Apple Store by Foster + Partners

It’s not unusual for Apple stores in larger cities to function as showcases for architecture nearly as much as they do for electronics. In this case, internationally renowned firm Foster + Partners augmented “the greenest Apple space yet” with two hand-carved spiraling staircases made of Italian Castagna Stone. The architects describe them as “warm and beautifully sculpted bookends” in an “homage to craftsmanship and materiality.”

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A Few Steps Higher 14 Unusually Artistic Modern Staircase Designs

More than just a means of advancing from one level of a building to the next, staircases are an opportunity for drama and sculptural flair, like a permanent art installation built into the structure. Spiraling toward skylights, carved into a building’s exterior or planted with lush gardens, these incredible modern staircases are the defining feature of the houses, museums and offices the occupy.

Experimentarium by CEBRA, Denmark

This incredible 328-foot-long helix staircase by CEBRA at one of Denmark’s top science centers is made of 160 tons of steel and 10 tons of copper, spiraling up through the four-story atrium.

Salvador Dali Museum by HOK, St. Petersburg, Florida

At HOK’s Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, a stunning surrealist design befitting the artist being honored contains a spiral staircase that curls up toward the skylight even when the stairs end, like a vine stretching toward the sun.

Victoria & Albert Museum Stairs by Stuart Haygarth, London

Pieces of colorful framing typically used to frame art in museums becomes art in and of itself in this staircase installation by UK designer Stuart Haygarth at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Nearly 2,000 feet of cut-off framing pieces are joined, sanded and painted “to create a work akin in 3D graffiti on a traditional staircase reminiscent of the yellow brick road in ‘The Wizard of Oz,”” as the designer explains.

Interrobang Building by Bang by Min, Seoul

Rarely is a modern structure – particularly one shaped like a tower – so defined from outside by its exterior staircases. The firm Bang by Min ‘carved’ a staircase into the concrete block of the Interrobang mixed-use building in Seoul.

The Living Staircase by Paul Cocksedge

Commissioned for the creative office development Ampersand in London, ‘The Living Staircase’ by Paul Cocksedge features integrated planting areas along the balustrade as a functional garden.

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Stepping It Up 15 Spectacularly Sculptural Modern Staircases

Steep sites with limited buildable areas have always proved challenging for architects, but this home aims to navigate rocky terrain by breaking up a single dwelling into stair-connected segments.

Designed by Igor Sirotov, the PS1 House is a private residence to be built onto a series of stone lips that span from the lake’s surface below to access points above.

Weathered steel and concrete blend the buildings into the landscape while physically linking them via steps and railings as well.

The idea was driven in part by a desire to minimize the building’s footprint and need to alter the natural landscape, taking advantage of existing natural formations.

The design borrows from Modernist and Brutalist camps, austere but materially rich with aging in mind.

Steel frames and stone floors match the color and pattern palettes of surrounding site elements, providing semi-permeable shelters for bedrooms, kitchens and dining spaces at intervals between the top and bottom.