Thread by @Bossyator

TYPES OF STAIRCASES

When building, a staircase is designed to bridge a large vertical distance by dividing it into smaller vertical distances.

1. Curved Staircase
This style has no landings, stairs are continuous following a bend to make a striking architectural statement.

2. Straight Stairs
This type of staircase as the name suggests is literally straightforward. Straight stairs feature a single linear flight with no change in direction at all.

3. Quarter Turn Stairs
The classic straight style, meshed up a little. In this design, the stairs make a 90-degree turn at some point, going left or right after a landing.

4. Winder Stairs
The slightly more complicated sister to the quarter turn staircase as seen above. Have a look at the picture below you see a set of winder or treads that are wider on one side than the other taking the place of the landing to save space.

5. U-Shaped
The bend is taken even further to form a full U shape and almost similar to the quarter turn staircase, a landing separates the two parallel flights.

6. Spiral Staircase
A compact design centered around a single pole, so that if you looked at it from above, it would form a perfect circle. Something to consider: A spiral staircase's narrow wedge-shaped treads aren't the easiest to traverse.

7. Bifurcated Stairs.
This style maintains its royalty with the lower treads being wider than the rest. Balusters are used to support the handrails to form beautiful pieces of balustrades. It has a sweeping set of steps splitting into two smaller flights in opposite directions

8. Ladder Staircase.
No explanation needed here. Small-home owners desperate for even the tiniest extra sliver of square footage could go this route.

9. Cantilever Staircase.
This type of staircase has stair threads that appear to be floating on air without support. The treads are fixed to one end with a metal frame by creating divets while the other end either secures a railing system or simply floats freely.

10. Circular Staircase.
This one is a circle-shaped from a birds view (frame 1) as it forms a complete circle. It can be confused for a spiral staircase but if you look at the spiral stairs (frame 2) from a bird's view you can clearly see the difference.