Deutsche Bank, London [GB]

EeStairs + tp bennett

Designed by tp bennett for Deutsche Bank, this 17-storey, 550,000 sq ft headquarters places movement and encounter at the centre of the workplace. In the glazed atria, the stair is not a secondary escape route but an internal street, stitching floors together and turning circulation into a social, daylit event.

EeStairs’ West and East Atrium staircases read as a stacked ribbon of straight flights and calm landings, their sculpted profiles held in disciplined tension against the rectilinear frame of the building. The principal challenge lay in making that apparent effortlessness real: large, prefabricated steel carcasses, sized for goods-lift access and weighing up to 1.4 tonnes, had to be assembled with exact alignment so the balustrade lines, soffit joints and lighting rebates remained visually continuous. Coordination zones for third-party lighting and soffit services demanded equally rigorous setting-out.

Material choices amplify the architectural intent. Mild-steel balustrades in crisp RAL 9016 give the stair its luminous edge, while engineered European oak to treads, risers and veneered soffits brings warmth and acoustic softness. Blackened stainless inserts at the tread nosings add durability and quiet definition, a precise detail that speaks of EeStairs’ measured craft.