Custom Elevator Interiors and Design with Bronze Steel and Glass Elevator Designs St Pete FL Florida - eCAB Elevators

We thought we had nice designs – but take a look at what this company in Antwerp, Belgium did with the interiors of their elevator cabs! Creative interiors, painted by hand of course. They’ve definitely built their cabs to match their environment. We can do the same for your environment and your elevator cabs! (We have a feeling their not quite as funky as this!)

Photos from taken from here.

Determining your elevator needs is the first step to planning an elevator’s design.  This is called “elevatoring” and can be performed by elevator specialists or consultants.

Elevatoring practitioners are employed by architects to determine the correct number, size, speed, and layout of elevators in a new building. Get it wrong and the building is doomed. Elevatoring professionals must apply predictive analytic techniques to get the elevator design just right.

How a building will be used is important, but so is cultural nuance. All kinds of variables must be considered. For example, people get very upset if they have to wait more than 20 seconds for an elevator in an office building, while they will tolerate 30 or 40 seconds in a hotel or apartment building.

Here are a few more interesting facts:

• Probable stop rule of thumb: 10 people in an elevator serving 10 floors will make 6.5 stops. 10 people in an elevator serving 30 floors; 9.5 stops.
• There should be enough elevators operating efficiently enough to move 13% of the occupants of a building within 5 minutes.
• Standard elevator measure is about 2 square feet per person.
• People in Asia will tolerate less personal space than people in the U.S. and willingly cram onto elevators at much greater density rates.

The total number of elevator cabs must be planned during the design process so as to ensure a smooth ride for future passengers. Some elevators are even experimenting with advanced elevator algorithm heuristics to speed up the process – but that’s an entire other post.

A lot of thought goes into the design of an elevator interior – more than just good looks.  Creating appropriate spatial energy, using current building and fire codes as well as eco-friendly materials all need to be considered.    Here are a few things we have to think about when we start any new elevator cab design process.

Know your audience

Elevator interiors, whether in one elevator or a bank of elevators, can be designed to match the decor and ambiance of any building.  Deciding what that feeling is can determine whether the elevator interior is energizing and upbeat or calming and relaxing.  Heading home to your highrise condo at the end of the day, you’d want a calming elevator cab interior.  Heading to work in an office building each morning, you’d want to be energized.  If the designer has incorporated the energy of the building into the design, then many individuals are subconsciously being prepared for their business at hand.

A lot of thought and energy goes into designing an elevator interior. Conversations with business owners and tenants can help determine the general use of the elevator, and steer design decisions. Doing so can assist a designer in knowing which building and fire codes one must adhere to as well as providing information on the best energies to include in such the elevator’s interior design.

Know the building codes

Safety and security are the most important feature in all elevators. This is why it is important to read the associated building and fire codes for any building where you are performing the work.   Codes can be specific to the city, county and state and even to the building and building type – so be sure to do some digging for this information.

Being green

When you’re designing the elevator interior itself, the current trend is to use “green”, or eco-friendly building materials.  Many of these “green” materials used in traditional building construction do not meet the strict safety and fire codes required of elevators.  Be sure that all of your materials meet the fire codes or you’ll spend a good bit of time redesigning the elevator interior.

The same goes for recycled materials.  You’ll need to check that regulations regarding such materials meet current codes and standards. This is because most recycled materials come from older buildings or products which may have only been classified under older regulations which may now have newer and stricter guidelines.

A well-designed elevator interior always takes the above issues into consideration before starting any work on customizing the elevator cab itself.

An escalator at a high-end retail plaza like Bal Harbour Shops needs to look sophisticated and work impeccably well.

To match the decor expected of such retailers as Brooks Brothers, Cartier, Chanel, Christian Dior and Fendi, we took two escalators and clad them with #4 stainless steel. The outcome is a sleek, shiny conveyor that both blends into its surroundings while exhibiting the modern trends of it’s design neighbors.

A small waterfall fountain pool reflects on the underside of the escalator system, and lush foliage surrounds it.

View more photos in our gallery >

If you need gorgeous escalators for your next high-end retail space, contact us.

You might think you know a lot about elevators, but modernization has brought elevator technology a long way.  Here are some fun ‘Did You Know’ facts about elevator safety and design.

• The Door Close button is there mostly to give passengers the illusion of control. In elevators built since the early ’90s. The button is only enabled in emergency situations with a key held by an authority.
• The only known occurence of an elevator car free falling due to a snapped cable (barring fire or structural collapse), was in 1945. A B25 Bomber crashed into the Empire State Building, severing the cables of two elevators. The elevator car on the 75th floor had a woman on it, but she survived due to the 1000 feet of coiled cable of fallen cable below, which lessened the impact.
• Elevators are twenty times safer than escalators. There are twenty times more elevators than escalators, but only 1/3 more accidents.
• Elevators are also safer than cars. An average of 26 people die in elevators each year in the U.S. There are 26 car deaths every five hours.
• Most people who die in elevators are elevator technicians.
• The Otis Elevator Company carries the equivalent of the world’s population in their elevators every five days.
• The New York Marriott was the first to introduce a smart elevator system that assigned passengers to elevators depending on what floor they were heading to.
• Elevators used to require a two-man dispatcher/operator team to function. The advent of navigational buttons rendered those jobs obsolete.
• The area required for personal space is 2.3 feet. The average amount on elevators is generally 2 feet.
• Elevator hatches are generally bolted shut for safety reasons. In times of elevator crisis, the safest place is inside the elevator.
• The myth about jumping just before impact in a falling elevator is just that — myth. You can’t jump fast enough to counteract the speed of falling. And you wouldn’t know when to jump.
• Due to the laws of physics, elevators can’t be any taller than 1700 feet. Hoist ropes become too heavy after that, snapping at 3200 feet.