In constructional terms, the lift core is the spine of a building, providing support for the structure, as well as access and transportation within it. Thus, it is essential that all lift requirements are included in the early stages of planning. However, there is often confusion in the construction industry as to where the responsibility lies - builder, architect or lift manufacturer - and as a consequence costly errors are all too common.
Before detailed planning can begin, you need to know the expected capacity of your building and lift waiting times, and how this will impact lift requirements.
There are guidelines for calculating this, and a project-specific estimate of the relevant parameters is vital. The building’s function, its tenants, and their distribution throughout the building, as well as the standard of lift service, will all impact upon the number of cars required in your build.
For example, if you’re constructing an office building where a fast service is the priority, you might need one elevator per 150-200 passengers. However, if the service level is economy-oriented, then the ratio of passengers per car will be greater – one car for every 250-300 passengers. And if you’re planning for a hotel, then the ratio will be significantly lower, with one car per 90-120 rooms.
Depending on its height, your building may require more than one lift core; when there are more than 30 floors, single grouping is not efficient, normally resulting in long travel times as well as congestion in the elevator lobbies during peak periods. The solution lies in planning for banks of lifts with multiple shafts at different levels, creating sky lobbies where passengers can catch lifts to higher floors. With buildings far higher and narrower even than a decade ago, there are many more passengers to cater for, so achieving the correct ratio of people to lifts is clearly essential. It’s not uncommon to get this wrong and to later discover more lifts than expected are required.
When planning a lift in a high-rise buildings, a priority is to ensure traffic flow management is efficient as possible, which means anticipating the daily activities of your tenants and predicting their lift usage, especially during peak periods.
Get right down to specifics, such as what time employees will arrive and depart each day, and how often they are likely to leave the building in between. These statistics could be very different depending on the nature of each tenancy; the occupants of your building may be corporate, residential, or a mix of the two. Some may prefer to use the stairs, and certain entrances may be more popular than others. All these factors could impact significantly on how many lifts you require, their type (e.g. express or local service), their location in the building, and their size and speed.
Once you’ve considered the behaviour of people who will be using your building, you need to think about how best to transport them. Destination control system is one way to improve the performance of your lifts, whereby, instead of choosing the desired floor inside the lift car, the selection is made on the landing, typically via a touch screen.
Once passengers have selected their required floor, they are automatically nominated the most suitable lift. In theory this makes lift service more efficient but you should consider whether this system is appropriate for you, especially if yours is to be a multi-tenanted building, where needs may vary significantly. Destination control system is more suitable for a single-tenanted building where employees are more likely to have similar schedules. Also it’s worth bearing in mind that the system is more effective on up-peak than down-peak, as the lift car nomination is from the ground floor. This can result in some issues at the end of the day when journeys begin from many different floors.
Another consideration for DCS is impatient passengers who press the call button multiple times, which can effectively override the system’s efficiency; the advanced technology within the elevator counts each press of the button as a separate passenger, calculating how many individuals the lift can hold. A busy banker keen to get to his desk may end up with the lift to his or herself - all well and good for the banker, but the knock on effect won’t win them any new friends among fellow employees.
These days it’s typical for people to leave the office for lunch, but if you are planning a staff restaurant, café or canteen you need to consider carefully where in the building to place it. If you put your restaurant on the first floor, you will cause serious congestion at lunchtime; lifts won’t get any further than the first floor because they will be shuttling hungry passengers up and down. There will be similar problems in the morning as workers stop off for their breakfast and coffee. This issue can be resolved by locating any food hub on the ground floor or, if it’s appropriate, by creating a panoramic dining experience at the top of your tower. In the latter case you should consider a separate lift system to take passengers directly to the restaurant floor. If your restaurant is on the ground floor, it may be more appropriate to install escalators.
Last but not least, you must ensure access to your high-rise building complies with fire and safety standards. If your building is a certain size (where the upper-most storey is more than 18m above ground floor level), the law requires that you install a specifically designed firefighter’s lift. In order to comply with fire regulations, the lift needs fire-rated doors, a back-up power supply, a larger car, minimum 1.0 mps speeds, internal communications system and built in water protection for firefighting run-off. The lift must serve every floor of the building, reach the highest floor in less than 60 seconds, and fit a minimum of eight people.
Lift planning is a complex business and there are plenty of opportunities for costly errors.
Consider carefully where amenities such as restaurants are placed, and don’t forget there are all manner of health and safety regulations to comply with. These things all need to be considered in the early stages of planning to ensure you get it right first time and avoid expensive mistakes. Think beyond the obvious and don’t assume somebody else is taking responsibility.
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