Building a glass staircase to heaven while keeping both feet on the ground

In the entrance of the new office building for Heerema marine contractors in Leiden, the Netherlands, a glass staircase has been built as the main visual element. This glass staircase is unusual in several ways in that it uses metal only as for connecting elements and uses a more complex construction than existing glass staircases resulting in a structure that is more expressive architecturally than the simple glass stair cases built in the last few years. The initial design was based on a concept using only annealed glass and advanced bonding technologies. This concept was considered too dangerous by the regulatory bodies and was modified using laminated tempered glass. During the engineering phase it was found that one element could not be produced as originally intended leading to further adaptation in the design. In the fall of 2006 the structure has been finished. The original design and some of the adaptations are