View from Within: Raise to the Heavens

According to Yekaterina Krupina, deputy general director at Clover Group, the quality of the lifts in no small degree depend on the perception of the whole building. Lifts in a skyscraper are not simply a technical instrument, helping movement between floors; they are a complex mechanism with a mass of important characteristics. According to Vitaly Tarasov, head of the management of projects department at Cushman Wakefield / Stiles Riabokobylko, in choosing the brand of the lift, builders usually pay attention to such characteristics, as reliability and safety, the noiselessness of movement of the lift, the accuracy of stops, design of the cabin and also the speed of the lift.

It is impossible for a high-altitude business center to function without modern lifts capable of quickly lifting a person hundreds of meters upwards. The success of the working of the whole complex and the comfort and safety of its inhabitants depend on the lift equipment.

Until recent times in Moscow there were few high-altitude buildings. In due course several apartment buildings including Edelweiss, by Konti on Davydkovskaya ulitsa, the first project of the capital’s authorities’ ambitious New Ring of Moscow program, which provides for the construction of several tens of skyscrapers within the city’s boundaries, have been added to the Stalin skyscrapers. Also there are the residential buildings of Don-Stroi, including Triumph Palace on Tchapaevsky pereulok, currently the highest residential complex in Europe. It is possible to also name the Krasniye Kholmy hotel Kosmodamianskaya Naberezhnaya and a few others.

There have been plans for the construction of skyscrapers in Moscow for a long time. In 1976 in Moscow the CIB congress in which representatives of international engineering and architectural public organizations participated, a general classification of buildings based on their height was accepted. Structures measuring up to 30 meters are called raised level buildings, if the height exceeded 50, 75 and 100 m, they, accordingly, were ranked I, II and III. It was decided that buildings above 100 meters would be called high-altitude buildings.

It is important that in classifying buildings the criterion was not floors, but height in meters. Such an approach can be explained by the distinction in design regulations, concerning the heights of a built floor. The concept of a high-altitude building differs in different countries. For example, in the Russian capital the regulations for designing mass multi-storey residential constructions are oriented towards a height of up to 75 m, practice formed to attribute buildings above 75 meters as skyscrapers.

Elements of quality

For example, the speed in many respects depends on the design of the drive of the lift. In lifts intended for high-altitude buildings, they have direct-drive. This consumes less electric power, does not demand expenditures on service, is small, under it you do not need to construct an engine room, which considerably simplifies the installation works of the lift and reduces the cost of the building and, accordingly, the building as a whole.

Pavel Pek, a design expert at Mirax Group, thinks that in choosing lifts for high-altitude buildings the main issue is maintenance of the necessary movement of traffic, which in practice means a minimal waiting time for a called lift for all the visitors of the building. Tarasov notes in this occasion, that Russian lifts in many characteristics are no worse than their foreign counterparts, but their speed does not exceed 1.6 km/sec. This is one of the reasons why in skyscrapers construction developers do not use domestic production. For comparison: the speed of ThyssenKrupp lifts is 4-7 km/sec, and Alta (Kone) lifts are capable of accelerating to 17 km/sec.

According to Schindler, today some manufacturers in the world have introduced lifts that move with a speed of up to 10 km/s. Lifts of this type demand completely different design and technological solutions to normal. On the one hand, it is necessary for the manufacturer to observance requirements on noise, vibrations and speed and the design so that passengers feel comfortable, and on the other hand safety should come above everything. Therefore lift designs should have a sanction from Gosgortekhnadzor (State City Technical Inspection of Russia) to operate and in special cases additional documents confirming the reliability and quality of the lift, says Tarasov.

According to research carried out by lift producers, waiting for a lift does not cause irritation if it takes 15-22 seconds. Manufacturers of lifts have developed special, so-called intelligent systems for the managements of lifts. For example, in Otis lifts in the model used for skyscrapers, Elevonic Class system RSR Plus is used.

According to the manufacturer, RSR is a numerical index expressing time, necessary for the lift to answer to a call. It is appropriated by a microprocessor system to each lift in the group and estimated by it. On the basis of such estimations the control system defines which car will take the least time to react to the call. Each car in the given working condition on the basis of analysis of the afore mentioned parameters has a certain number of “bonuses” (time subtracted by the system) and “penalties” (time added by system). The result of these operations also defines the numerical index of the RSR. The car with the lowest index will go to the floor that the call was made from.

In Elevonic Class models another innovation has been established. The Lambda 3D system of protective doors. This represents an infrared curtain consisting of 56 infrared beams, and does not allow the doors of the lift to close if it is in a doorway or there is a passenger in the lift near to it.

Yekaterina Kukanova, head of the press-service of Don-Stroi thinks that lift computer control systems increase their efficiency by 15-20 per cent. Intelligent systems supervise access on floors, identifying the passenger, to define the destination point and streams of passengers in advance, optimizing traffic, she says.

Schindler equips its lifts with the newest Lobby Vision system, which gives information on the working status of all lifts at one time on a computer in real time mode. According to Schindler, the information includes such parameters as number of trips, number of times the doors open and close (in general and by floor), the distribution of calls by floors, number of the passengers arriving and going from each floor, average waiting time etc. The results of the statistical analysis are displayed on a screen in the form of convenient graphs and tables.

For high-altitude buildings with intensive volumes of passenger traffic Kone offers an innovative control system called Kone Polaris. The innovation is that passengers choose the necessary floor not in the car of the lift, but in the lobby on the first floor of the building. This not only saves time, but also raises the level of comfort and convenience, especially in cases of congestion. All other floors are equipped with the usual call buttons.

The Kone Polaris system is used to manage passenger traffic in buildings where high-speed Kone Alta lifts with a speed of up to 17 km/sec and Kone MonoSpace lifts are installed. Incidentally, Kone Alta lifts equip the most famous skyscrapers in the world, including Almas Tower, which is one of the highest buildings in Dubai, and has 33 Kone Alta lifts carrying passengers to a height of 297 meters; the Hyatt Center in Chicago where 25 high-speed lifts rise to 197 meters, and also the 42-storey conic glass Swiss Re tower in London, which is equipped with 24 lifts. Now Kone Alta is installing lifts in the Moscow-City project.

Lifts for skyscrapers require an independent power supply system, which excludes the possibility of the car finding itself blocked. “If the central power supply system of the premises is switched off the lifts should switch to a reserve feed. This means that for 3-4 hours the lifts will continue work in the usual mode,” says Yuri Sinyaev, director of marketing at Konti.

Before high-speed lifts are installed they have to pass serious tests. All leading manufacturers have special towers where they test new lifts. The Moscow representative office of Kone has informed us that all Kone Alta high-speed lifts go through a multistage monitoring system in a test mine at Tytyri near Helsinki. It was constructed in 1998 in the shaft of a former mine. The depth of the mine is 350 meters, and it has a complex system of communications and a special laboratory to test the technical condition of the lift equipment.

Aesthetics of comfort

According to Antonina Lairova, senior analyst at Prime City Properties, in skyscrapers, aesthetics are an important characteristic of the lifts. One or more glass walls and the furnishing of lifts with expensive materials do not influence the main parameters of the speed of service of employees and visitors of business centers, but it is important to raise the status of the premises, he explains. “Users pay more attention to the furnishings of the lift, than to the technical components,” Sinyaev adds.

According to Tarasov, for buildings with different levels of comfort various development of the design of a car is used. For example, the use of glass creates a panoramic view from the lift, and mirrors increase space,” she says.

Pek says that the internal panels of the car can be made from polished stainless steel, which expands the space visually. The variant of using veneer sheeting made from valuable types of wood or natural stone is also possible. A ceiling with natural and comfortable illumination for the eyes and a floor made of marble. As for the door portal it can be made from polished stainless steel with engraving in the form of an original drawing or the trademark of the company. The lifts in the Federation business complex are equipped with displays on which it is possible to deduce practically any information.

Making a choice

Krupin thinks that the main criteria in choosing lifts for an office complex are the reputation of manufacturers in the world and Russian market, the ration between price and quality of their production and the presence of a developed service infrastructure. For example, Kukanova says that Don-Stroi chooses its suppliers of lifts for both residential and commercial premises among the world’s leading manufacturers - Shindler, Kone, ThyssenKrupp, LG. "The reason is obvious: these companies have huge experience and invest significant funds in the development of new technical solutions,” she says.

According to Alexei Mikhalov, the manager of high-altitude projects at Schindler, all the parameters of lift equipment in skyscrapers are considered on the basis of the prospective loading of passenger streams. "From these calculations it becomes clear, which parameters the lifts should possess to guarantee high-grade and trouble-free operation,” he specifies.

The question about using the lifts of specific manufacturers is discussed during the development of the concept of a building. "Skyscrapers are complex buildings, therefore [in the construction of Edelweiss] offers from the best world lift manufacturers were considered, and in the end we chose ThyssenKrupp,” Sinyaev says. Pek confirms that in choosing the supplier of lift equipment in Mirax Group’s Federation project a tender was carried out. Participants of the tender presented simulated analysis of the movement of lifts with a condition that the waiting time for a lift at peak times should be no more than 25 seconds. ThyssenKrupp and Schindler presented the best results. These companies became the suppliers of lifts for the Federation project.

According to Yucca Kyulmayl, director of corporate projects at Kone in Russia, work on the project (supplying lift equipment for the buildings in Moscow-City) began in 1992, when the first plans of the Moscow government to construct Moscow-City were made public. "Kone’s active cooperation and contacts with architects, builders, developers and consultants, Kone’s active help in calculating the volume of passenger traffic, consultations in choosing the optimum equipment, speed and carrying capacity have allowed us to compete and successfully win the most significant sites of Moscow-City,” he says.

Vladislav Samokhin, general director of Kone specifies that in the lift business there are three main aspects on which a customer makes its decision to choose the equipment of this or that manufacturer. They are financial, technical and psychological factors, or, in other words, the price, the reliability of the equipment and the strength of the brand. "When a customer considers these three key aspects we always have an advantage in one of them,” he notes.

According to Mikhailov, every lift of the company can be called exclusive as each one is always developed under an individual project. "This gives the customer what it wants," he emphasizes.

City Skyscrapers

Moscow-City is the largest space using high-speed lifts in Russia. It is important to note that the skyscrapers under construction in the Russian capital will be the highest buildings not only in Russia, but also in Europe. The 247-meter Federation complex surpasses the Commerzbank building in Frankfurt, currently the highest constructed European building. The height of Federation including its spire will be 506 meters. The East Tower will reach 360 meters, and the West Tower will reach 243 meters.

According to Mirax Group, there will be 17 ThyssenKrupp lifts in the West tower. The first group will include six Twin model lifts, which will serve passengers up to the 32nd floor. The Twin model represents two cabins moving in one shaft independently of each other. This type of lift is a new development of ThyssenKrupp specially created for the Federation skyscraper, Pek says. The second group, five Twin lifts, will serve the floors 33-46. The third group will be four usual Single Deck lifts, which will carry visitors from the bottom to the 62nd floor, two of which will go to the 48th floor without stopping.

"The convenience of grouping the lifts is in the fact that they are managed by a single computer, which chooses which lift is closest for the client,” Pek explains. The fourth group of lifts includes two Single Deck Schindler technical lifts and three lifts serving the 4th to 6th floors of the Stylobate parts.

In the East tower there will be 36 Schindler branded lifts, twelve of which will be used for the office zone: seven will serve the 4th to 38th floors, and five will serve the 4th to 51st floors. Three express lifts will be specially earmarked for visitors of the hotel (from the 3rd to the 93rd floors) and three lifts for the service divisions of the hotel (from the 3rd to the 93rd floors). In the building there will be six lifts especially for apartments and VIP-visitors (from the 4th to the 89th floor), and two lifts for the transportation of fire units (from the 4th to the 93rd floor). In addition there will be two panoramic lifts for general use, four lifts for the visitors of the hotel (from the 47th to the 93rd floor), and two lifts for the service divisions of the hotel and apartments (from the 53rd floor to the roof).

In the stylobate parts of Federation 11 Schindler lifts will function. Among them will be two lifts for disabled people and for the nightclub, five lifts for technical support and offices and two for the kitchen of the bar-restaurant in the hotel. An unusual solution has been offered for the podium of the building where Mirax Group’s office will be located. For the first time in a Russian building inclined lifts will be used. As Pek explains, it is necessary to use this type of lift because the atrium of the podium is cone shaped, with its radius increasing upwards, and accordingly, the lifts will follow the incline of the atrium.

Currently there are already three high-altitude complexes in the territory of Moscow-City equipped with Kone lifts. The first is a multipurpose administrative complex with a hotel and residential apartments 56 floors high. In the building 30 lifts will function. The second project is Capital City, a building with two towers measuring 274 meters (73 floors). Kone will install 52 lifts here, of which four will be two-story Double Deck cars, and 34 lifts will be supplied with a Kone Polaris control system. The third is Naberezhnaya Tower, which includes three towers. The maximum height of the central building is 268 meters. There will be 45 Kone lifts in the premises.

Kone lifts will also be installed in the Gradex multipurpose complex, which is being built on the junction between Leningradskoye shosse and the Third Transport Ring. In the 107-meter building there will be 23 lifts with a speed of up to 4 km/s.

Schindler has become the supplier of lift equipment in an office complex under construction on Begovaya ulitsa, which is being built by DC Development. The project assumes the construction of a 230-meter (42 floors) office center. In the building 11 Schindler 7000 high-altitude lifts will be installed, six of which will be Double Deck. According to the company, the essence of Double Deck technology is the movement of two lifts in one shaft. This reduces the number of shafts whilst maintaining high throughput and as a consequence, lowers expenses. The maximum movement of Double Deck lifts will be 105 meters, and single high-altitude lifts 158 meters. The speed of the lifts will be 4 km/sec to 6 km/sec.

The participation of Schindler in the project was determined after it became clear to the architects at a stage in the designing, that there were not enough lift shafts in the building. According to Mikhailov, experts of the company have carried out a lot of work on the preparation of the project in order to solve the problem. "Together with the customer we started to analyze the possibility of using multi-deck solutions which in the end has been carried out,” he says. Every lift manufacturer already has a package of orders and is already carrying out negotiations on the participation in new projects.