Design Process of Elevators Inside High-Rise Hospital Buildings

Abstract

Today, the demand for medical care facilities is increasing while available land is becoming limited, resulting in higher land prices. However, with the continuing advancement in construction technology, newly constructed hospital buildings are being built higher with reduced footprints to fit into smaller land plots. As a result, elevators now play a vital role in new buildings. This article is part of a thesis with the aim of studying the elevator design processes in high-rise hospitals. The method of conducting this study is to learn the basics related to elevator design and the architectural design process. Included is an interview with architects from an architect firm with experience and expertise in designing high-rise hospitals. This paper will analyze the data and summarize the study results. It is expected to be the basis for further study of the thesis.

The results of the study showed that the elevator design process, in high-rise hospitals, starts during the conceptual stage up until the final design phase just before the start of construction. The process may consist of three main specialists: architects, engineers and elevator manufacturers. Architects will play a key role in defining all elementary elevator design elements based on their past experiences and expertise. The architect sends a clear draft of the entire hospital building to the engineer or elevator manufacturers who will check multiple criteria, such as elevator load, elevator speed, elevator traffic and determining if the number of elevators is adequate by analysing data from the proposed building plan. The results are then returned to the architect to consider if modification is necessary. The project manager and the project owner will play a role in approving the architects proposal.

In addition, the elevator design process in high-rise hospitals can be divided into two types; the elevator design process with engineers, and elevator design process without engineers. It was found that the elevator design process with engineers started during the initial design concept which made it easy to modify the details based on the advice of engineers. However, in the elevator design process without engineers, the architects will instead have to collaborate with the elevator manufacturer during the later design stages making it more difficult to make detailed adjustments based on the elevator manufacturer's instructions.