A stairway is a very significant architectural element. Stairs take up a significant amount of floor space and have an effect on headroom, so accurately showing the stair in plan is very important. Drawn as a series of parallel lines, a staircase also has an arrow and a note indicating the direction of travel, either up or down.Modern building codes have a significant impact on the size and arrangement of stairs. From width to riser height to tread width and railing issues, no stair should be designed without a thorough understanding of these codes.