£1m staircase is latest win for Dudley metalworkers

The contract includes a geometrically unique parabolic spiral staircase, which will be made from mild steel at Glazzard's Washington Centre factory, and installed at Wellcome Collection, a cultural venue on Euston Road, London.

The staircase is part of a major £17.5m development project to create new galleries and spaces for the six-year-old venue.

Stirling Prize-winning architects Wilkinson Eyre Architects are transforming Wellcome Collection with the development, due for completion in the summer of 2014.

Glazzard sales director Rob Wood said: "It will be the biggest single staircase in terms of value that we have ever produced. Weighing over 16 tonnes it will rise 9.7 metres from the ground to second floor."

Design work has just got underway and the construction work is due to take five months with installation programmed to start early in the new year.

The outer surface of the staircase will feature a shot blast and clear lacquer finish with the inner balustrade featuring hot sprayed polished stainless steel.

The Wellcome Collection will remain open throughout the build. It was created by the trust, a global charitable foundation, to explore the connections between medicine, life and art.

It was originally designed to accommodate 100,000 yearly visits from the incurably curious but numbers have grown to almost 500,000 visitors a year.

Glazzard was created in 1970 by Ray Glazzard – father of current managing director Andrew Glazzard. It has been at its current main base in Netherton, where it has a 20,000sq ft factory divided into two work bays, each equipped with an overhead crane, since 1990.

It has also retained its Windsor Works in Halesowen Road from its original three sites in the Black Country.

The company, which has also done work for major projects including The Shard, the new Wembley Stadium and Ascot Racecourse, is also currently involved in producing metalwork for the New Street railway station re-development project in Birmingham.

"We are continuing to win orders from all over the country," added Mr Wood.

The company, which employs 95, looks to achieve annual turnover of between £6m and £9m.

Glazzard's expertise in metalworking is in demand all over the UK and it places a high emphasis on continuing training of its skilled staff

It has completed many prestige projects over the last two decades including staircases and balustrades for the RAC's headquarters at Bristol and 20 helical staircases for the Inland Revenue offices at Nottingham.

It also did work on major projects like the re-development of Lords cricket ground in London, the Bull Ring shopping centre in Birmingham and Heathrow Airport's terminal one.