Alternatives to Enclosed Elevator Lobbies: Accordion Doors

Enclosed elevator lobbies are required by most building codes to limit the ability of smoke and fire to travel from floor to floor via elevator shafts.

Enclosed elevator lobbies can be very intrusive on design. Therefore, we want to address the temporary enclosed elevator lobby that can be created through the use of accordion doors.

Accordion doors are large steel doors that fold up into a pocket out of the way when not in use. They deploy along a track in the ceiling when a fire is detected and despite how rigid they sound, can actually bend around corners and into unusual shapes. These doors can be installed in a variety of shapes and sizes to accommodate for the design of the building while still providing excellent smoke and fire protection.

When in use, the accordion doors deploy around the elevator, in the shape that the building design requires, to form a temporary elevator lobby while still enabling an open floor plan for regular day-to-day activities.

While for the most part these doors are often hidden, there is still a certain amount of space that must be reserved by architects to account for the doors.