Frameless glass staircase railing in a contemporary home

Service Profile · Railing

A railing the architect actually drew.

Aluminium-and-glass railing for staircases, balcony parapets, mezzanine landings and podium decks. Frameless 12 mm toughened glass slotted into a slim base channel — or a slim aluminium top-rail with laminated glass infill. Built to bye-law height, tested for wind load, finished to disappear into the architecture.

Send the drawing

Or call Suraj — +91 98703 08481

Glass

12 / 13.52 mm

Base

SS 304 / Alu U-channel

Parapet

1.05 m height

Build

Frameless / top-rail

Panel span

Up to 1.8 m

Tested

Wind-load

Scroll

Chapter 01 · The Problem

Three railings, and
none of them quite fit.

A staircase in a Bandra duplex, a podium deck in a sea-facing tower, a mezzanine landing in a Lower Parel office — every site asks the same question. The first three answers always disappoint.

A railing is a piece of safety hardware that has to read as architecture. That is the entire brief.

The MS welded railing

Looks honest at handover. Three monsoons later the base is rusting where the mop-water sits, and the orange streaks down the riser tell the story to every guest.

ii.

The local-fab glass railing

Hits the right idea, misses the tolerance. The panel rattles in the sea breeze, the U-channel sits proud of the floor, and the silicone seam yellows by year two.

iii.

The wooden balustrade

Beautiful indoors, impossible on a Mumbai balcony. Twists in the humidity, cracks in the AC, and a single splinter ends the design conversation.

iv.

The fourth answer

12 mm toughened glass slotted into an SS 304 base shoe — no top rail, no rattle, no rust. The sightline is the architecture.

Chapter 02 · How it works

Two builds.
One family of detail.

The base shoe — frameless build

An SS 304 or extruded aluminium U-channel sits flush with the floor, anchored into the slab with chemical fixings. 12 mm toughened or 13.52 mm laminated glass slots in vertically, gasketed and silicone-sealed. No top rail.

The slim top-rail build

A 6063-T6 top-rail caps the glass on a slim aluminium tube post. Used on staircases where a hand needs to land, or on parapets where the bye-law calls for a continuous rail. The post is the post — nothing thicker than the brief allows.

The fixings, gasket, seam

EPDM gasket inside the channel, structural silicone outside, rubber-cushion inner lining. The glass sits on a continuous bed — no point loads, no rattle. SS 304 standoff hardware where the design wants to read pin-fixed.

—

No welds in the cap.
No silicone bead at the floor.
No rust path.

The parts of a railing that fail in five years are simply not in this system.

Stainless steel and glass staircase railing detail

Chapter 03 · Material

What it’s made of.
Down to the gasket.

Glass to the right grade for the parapet height. Stainless wherever weather can reach. Extruded aluminium where the section size is doing the work. Specified for Mumbai monsoon, fabricated in our Santacruz workshop.

Material 01

The glass — toughened or laminated.

12 mm toughened for most parapets and balcony runs. 13.52 mm laminated (5 + 1.52 PVB + 5) on staircases and any panel above 1.05 m, so a fractured panel still holds in place. CE-marked, edge-polished, soak-tested.

Material 02

The base shoe — SS 304 or alu.

SS 304 base shoe for sea-facing parapets and any podium that gets washed weekly. Extruded 6063-T6 aluminium U-channel where the design wants the channel to disappear into the floor. EPDM gasket inside, structural silicone outside.

Stainless steel cable and hardware close up

Material 03

The hardware — all stainless.

SS 304 standoffs, fixings and chemical anchors. Rubber-cushion inner lining behind every glass edge. No MS, no zinc-plated bolt, no part of the system that can rust onto a freshly polished riser.

Chapter 04 · Where it’s installed

Real homes.
Real edges. Real safety.

Staircases in bungalows and duplex flats. Mezzanine landings in office cabins. Podium-level decks above a stilt floor. Terrace parapets in Bandra and Khar. Pool surrounds in Juhu. Restaurant mezzanines in Lower Parel.

Frameless glass railing on a contemporary staircase

Staircase · Bandra duplex

The most requested install.

Frameless 12 mm toughened glass on the staircase of a bungalow or duplex flat. Base shoe runs flush with the tread; no top rail; the staircase reads as one volume of glass and stone.

Mezzanine · Lower Parel

Office landings & gallery edges

Podium deck · Worli

Stilt-floor podium edge

Terrace parapet · Khar

Bungalow rooftop runs

Outdoor pool surround with glass railing

Pool surround · Juhu

Frameless pool-edge enclosure

Balcony with slim top-rail glass railing

Balcony · Powai

Slim top-rail with laminated infill

South Mumbai · Sea-facing

SS 304 base shoe specified within 1 km of the coastline

Chapter 05 · Comparison

A direct read on the
seven decisions that matter.

MS welded railing

Wooden balustrade

Aditi Glass Railing

Sightline

Heavy vertical bars

Solid balusters

Frameless or slim top-rail

Parapet bye-law height

Often under-spec

1.05 m, signed off on drawing

Monsoon / mop-water

Rusts at the base in 3 yr

Swells, splits

SS 304 base shoe — no rust

Wind-load on a high floor

Fine, but ugly

Not rated

Wind-load tested per panel

Glass safety on fracture

—

13.52 mm laminated holds in place

Salt-air durability

Rust at every weld

Surface rot in 4 yr

SS 304 / 316 hardware

If a panel ever needs swapping

Cut & re-weld

Carpentry rebuild

Unbolted, re-glazed in a day

Chapter 06 · Benefits

Rarely a single feature.
Always the combination.

Frameless or slim top-rail.

Two builds in the same family of detail. Frameless 12 mm where the sightline is everything. Slim aluminium top-rail where a hand needs to land or a bye-law calls for a continuous cap.

Glass to the right grade.

12 mm toughened for most parapets. 13.52 mm laminated (5 + 1.52 PVB + 5) on staircases and high-floor balconies, so a fractured panel still holds in place rather than dropping out of the channel.

SS 304 base shoe.

The base of any railing is where mop-water sits and rust starts. Stainless base shoe on every sea-facing or podium install — no orange streak down the slab two monsoons in.

Wind-load tested, panel by panel.

Each panel is sized for the building wind-load on its floor, not specified to a generic catalogue rating. The taller the tower, the larger the channel.

Parapet height, bye-law compliant.

1.05 m default to the top of glass, signed off on the shop drawing before fabrication. Society secretary gets a one-page note for the file when the building asks.

Retrofit-friendly.

Replaces an MS welded railing without breaking the floor finish. We core-drill into the slab, set the chemical anchors, drop in the channel — the marble or wood floor stays.

Salt-air durable.

SS 304 base shoe and hardware as standard for sea-facing flats inside 1 km of the coastline. SS 316 on the podium edge if the spec calls for it.

Integrates with the tread or the deck.

Channel set flush with the staircase tread, the timber deck or the IPS floor — no proud edge, no toe-stub, no silicone bead chasing the floor line.

Designer-direct.

Suraj reads the drawing. No franchise, no call-centre, no rep filtering technical questions. The relationship is the brand.

Chapter 07 · Common questions

The questions a designer
asks before the quote.

Sightline first. If the brief is to make the railing disappear, frameless 12 mm into a base shoe is the answer. If the building bye-law or the staircase ergonomics call for a continuous handhold, the slim top-rail in a 6063-T6 section is the right system. We can pair both — frameless on the parapet, top-rail on the stair — without breaking the family of detail.

13.52 mm laminated as default for any panel on the 5th floor and above, or any panel above 1.05 m. The laminated build means a fractured panel still holds in the channel rather than dropping out — which is the failure mode that matters at height.

Yes. 1.05 m to the top of glass is the Mumbai bye-law default for residential parapets and we sign off the height on the shop drawing before fabrication. We can supply a one-page note for the society secretary on request.

Not the SS 304 build. For flats inside 1 km of the coastline we specify SS 304 base shoe, fixings and chemical anchors as standard. SS 316 on the podium edge if the spec calls for it. No MS, no zinc-plate, nothing that streaks orange down the slab two monsoons in.

Yes. We core-drill into the slab for the chemical anchors and set the channel flush with the floor finish. Marble, IPS, timber deck — the floor stays. Removal of the old MS railing is a half-day, install is a day per balcony.

14–21 working days from drawing approval to handover for a typical staircase or terrace run. Glass tempering and lamination has a two-week lead time at the supplier; we fabricate the channel and standoffs in parallel so the install slot lines up with the glass delivery.

Pricing depends on glass spec, base-shoe choice and the linear run. Send the drawing or the parapet dimensions and we’ll quote within two working days. We don’t publish a per-foot rate — a 2 m staircase with a corner costs more per foot than a 12 m straight terrace, so the number is misleading.

Send the drawing

Send the drawing.
We’ll quote by Friday.

No site-visit fee. No call-centre. No quote written before measurement. Suraj reads the drawing himself, walks the site within 48 hours of enquiry, and signs off the shop drawing before we fabricate.

If the railing is part of a bigger scope — staircase glass, terrace parapet and balcony slider on the same project — ask for a single specification covering all three. One workshop, one fabricator, one family of detail.

Phone

+91 98703 08481

surajgudhka@gmail.com

Web

www.aditienterprise.org

Workshop

Santacruz (East), Mumbai

aditi enterprise · Aluminium fabricators for Mumbai's interior designers, architects and HNI residences.