Stairs and Why We Ascend Them
Although views on what makes you healthy seem to change over time (particularly concerning diet), physical activity seems to be uncontroversially good for you.
One of the things I liked about my postdoc at Queen's University was that it was easy to have exercise built into my schedule. I walked to work, and my office was on the sixth floor. That's high enough to be some good exertion but low enough to be doable several times a day. I tried to always use the stairs.
At Carleton the door-to-door walk is one hour. A two-hour round trip commute is too much for me, most days, even if it's gorgeous out, which, for many months of the year, it's not. So I drive. The other thing is that I work on the 22nd floor. Not a walker.
But I got thinking. Why not walk up to the sixth floor and then take the elevator? I'm going to try to do this. I will make exceptions when I'm with someone, or I'm in a rush, or not feeling well, etc. Furthermore, I have an ambition to add one floor every semester. So next semester I will ascend 7 flights of stairs before getting onto the elevator.
With obesity a big problem, there is a push to get people using stairs. One thing that's getting in the way is, believe it or not, aesthetics. People find some staircases inviting and others not. The staircase pictured (One of the two identical symmetrical main staircases within the main hall of the Amtsgericht Berlin in Berlin Mitte near the Alexanderplatz) is gorgeous, and looks (to me anyway) like a lot of fun to go up and down. But modern architectural customs have rendered staircases barren, windowless, hard, and ugly. Why? Because they are fire exits. Fire exits need to be free of anything flammable, and need to have heavy, ugly fire doors. Uninviting.
It's a major modern challenge to make great staircases that people want to use, while at the same time maintaining adherence to fire codes.
Here is a link to some incredibly fun and creative staircases:
http://www.zuzafun.com/cool-staircases
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