Otis reaches high with new system

The Otis Elevator company has launched an advanced building transit system that will make it possible build the next generation of hyper-tall skyscrapers.

The Odyssey system can move passengers both horizontally and vertically in the same cab - called a Transitor - to the top of hyper tall buildings, or from the limits of sprawling complexes, such as airports. And Otis claims that it is now possible to travel from a car park to the 60th floor of a building in 90 seconds.

Architects have been constrained by lift technology limitations which effectively limit the maximum height of tall buildings to 600m. Otis claims that this limitation has now been removed, leaving designers free to plan buildings of 1000m and beyond.

Forty years ago this year the legendary American architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed a mile high building - the Illinois - and suggested atomic-powered, five storey lifts to move the building's 130,000 inhabitants. The company's founder, Elisha Otis, was one of the people to whom Wright dedicated the project.

The world's tallest buildings at the moment are the 452m high Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which use double-deck Otis lifts with sky lobbies for passenger transfers. Contemporary lifts cannot travel much further, due in part to the limitations of steel cables attached to the cars.

An extension of this is not possible because the excessive amount of building core space required would reduce the amount of usable and rentable space, making such a project unviable.

The Odyssey system can be configured so that three cars use one lift shaft. As one Transitor module arrives at a sky lobby, it moves from a hoisted deck frame horizontally into a loading/unloading area, allowing another module in the same shaft to pass and move up to other areas, while a third moves vertically to its next stop.

Dispatching technology is used to assign lifts to respond to variations in passenger traffic by analysing a building's traffic patterns and adapting accordingly.

The super tall skyscrapers envisioned by Wright in 1956 are now economically and commercially possible because the Odyssy system uses building core space more efficiently than traditional systems, the company claims.