Analysis of New Lift Typology with Visual Stimulation of Passengers

For years, lift cars were more like closed transportation boxes than elements of architectural experience. The lack of visual stimulation encountered in a conventional lift became an awkward interruption to the otherwise enriching experience offered by the architecture of public buildings. A glass-walled lift car provides an ideal solution to that disruption, but is not feasible in most instances and often entails extra costs. As a result, the lift level indicator, supplemented in some advanced cases with cartoons, has become the standard tool used to inform passengers of their current position. A lifelike virtual lift window system, designed to transform passenger experience, was released four years ago and gradually found a niche in sophisticated lifts for upscale buildings. The technology relies on the precise calculation of every pixel and offers a real-time picture of the outside view combined with augmented reality and contextual information. Modern trends of visualization employed in lift cars, including virtual windows, vary in degrees of image quality, positioning accuracy, and lag. In times when ‘architecture at its best is coming up with something that is pure fiction’, we have in our possession a tool that is already embedded in the vertical transportation cabin. There is a sound advertising potential, more humanized typology of lift design, and almost universal navigation tool for visitors of public buildings. Further prospects of employing that technology in forthcoming multidimensional lifts as well as in conventional lifts are shown in terms of technical feasibility, costs and outcome.