Services / New Building Design
Get the lifts right before the building locks them in — core sizing is one of the few decisions that cannot be corrected once the building is up.
Elevate™
industry-standard traffic analysis software
AS 1735.1.2
EN 81-20:2020 design standard, tested to AS 1735.1.3
Independent
of every manufacturer
Traffic analysis models passenger movement to size the number, speed and capacity of units against the building's population and peak patterns
Technical specification written and tendered to the market, independent of any manufacturer
Design review through construction, witness testing and handover
Vertical transportation is one of the few building systems that is close to impossible to fix later. Shaft dimensions, core placement, machine room provision and lift count are locked in at design; if the traffic analysis was wrong, the building spends its whole life with queues in the lobby. Independent input at concept and schematic stage costs a fraction of what it costs to live with the outcome.
Because we don't sell or install equipment, our specification is written around what the building needs, and it can be tendered to any capable manufacturer. That keeps the tender genuinely competitive and keeps the developer's options open.
New installations: base build
We provide lift design consultancy for new developments, beginning with elevator traffic analysis and simulation programs to determine the number, size and speed of lifts needed to meet the building's individual requirements.
We handle initial planning and design coordination, technical specifications and stakeholder collaboration, so the vertical transportation performs well, runs efficiently, meets accessibility requirements and remains reliable over the long term.
FAQ
A stretcher facility is a lift car sized to carry an ambulance stretcher, required by the National Construction Code in certain buildings, with minimum internal car and door dimensions set by the Code.
Whether a stretcher facility is required depends on the building's classification and rise. It is a matter to establish at design stage on new buildings, because retrofitting stretcher capability into an existing shaft is rarely feasible.
At concept or early design stage. Decisions about lift numbers, capacities, speeds, grouping, core configuration and shaft dimensions become progressively more expensive to change and eventually impossible to change at all.
The most costly vertical transportation errors are not equipment failures but planning failures: a core that cannot accommodate the traffic the building will generate, shafts sized to a specification that later changes, or a lift group configured for a use the building no longer has. None of these are correctable once the structure is built.
Traffic analysis models the expected movement of people through a building to determine whether a proposed lift arrangement will deliver acceptable handling capacity and waiting times. It is the calculation that determines how many lifts a building needs, and at what capacity and speed.
Inputs include building use, population, number of floors, travel height and expected peak traffic patterns. Simulation then allows alternative configurations to be compared before the core is committed. Where this analysis is performed by a manufacturer, the resulting specification tends to reflect that manufacturer's product range. That is why we recommend it be done independently and expressed as performance requirements rather than as equipment selections.
Bring us in at concept stage. The earlier the input, the more it's worth.