Here at Midland Ladders our main business is providing a range of specialised and general use ladders to the trade, professional users and serious DIYers.  We also stock a range of smaller ladders for domestic use – for those jobs that need a bit of extra height but for which a huge ladder isn't needed.  When it comes to step stools for the home, you're spoilt for choice when you look at the wider market, which is why we tend to stock models from the same manufacturers that make the sturdy equipment found in factories and on building sites – we think safety and function is a more important consideration than form.

 

With that said, we're always keen to see how furniture designers are revolutionising the domestic step stool and ladder market; we know that for people with smaller homes (where a stepladder can't be hidden away) or those who love to curate a particular aesthetic in all items in the home design is often the more important factor.

 

Cameron Rowley, a recent graduate from Kingston University, caught our eye with his single-step ladder.  He entered into the new Designer of the Future awards and won the top prize.  This awards scheme was set up last year after Sir Terence Conran passed away.  The legacy of the legendary interior designer means that new and innovative designers can gain some exposure, as well as £40,000 prize money to help them get their products to market.

 

Rowley's single-step ladder is a design we have never seen before, and this is really saying something when you consider the limitations there are with designing and building a ladder – it's hard to change the form and function of a piece of equipment like this without compromising somewhere, but 23-year-old Rowley has done it.

 

Inspired by the shape of oars, the form of garden tool handles and by window cleaners' ladders, the single-step ladder uses a curved wooden frame in an extended wishbone shape with a single rung between the parallel parts.  This may only be wide enough for one foot, but this is intentional as Rowley observed that in most cases, a domestic step ladder or step stool is only used for a very brief moment to grab something from a shelf, or put something back in a cupboard.  It shares a shape with garden fork handles and the build process was inspired by the same method used to bend wooden fork handles.  The tall handle part provides ample control as a hand rail.

 

The small size of the single-step ladder means it doesn't take up much space at all and therefore can be kept easily at hand without being intrusive in a small kitchen or dining area.  The sleek and unimposing design will work with many styles of interior decoration – Rowley considered the fact that his piece will be used for only a few seconds at a time, and the rest of the time it needs to function as a display piece, hence the simple and attractive design.

 

Rowley's ladder isn't commercially available yet, but the ingeniously simple design and construction means that it is commercially viable and will most likely be cheaper than some of the £200+ designer models we have written about in previous blogs.  We can't wait to see what clever, outside-the-box thinking Rowley comes up with for his next piece.