Connecting Projects Large and Very Large

Recently, I finished a book titled The Devil in the White City, a non-fiction work about the building of Chicago’s World’s Fair in the late 1890s. Written by Erik Larson in 2003, it is told from the perspective of the fair’s primary architect, who was under great pressure from the previous World’s Fair in Paris where the Eiffel Tower was introduced. Elevators play a huge part in the story. Invented in the 1850s, the elevator gives this architect the feeling that there are no limits (in buildings and in his imagination). The book takes you back to the beginnings of our industry in the U.S and Europe. Anyone involved in the construction industry will enjoy the book. The sheer manpower needed to build a city is fascinating. Warning – there is also murder and mayhem involved.

This month, a large portion of the issue is taken up by the ELEVATOR WORLD Project of the Year Award winners. If seeing these makes you think, “I had a better project this year,” send it to us for next year’s awards.

• Elevators, New Construction. Schindler Elevator Corp. for Banque Nationale, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
• Elevators, Modernization. TK Elevator for the Humboldt Bank Building, San Francisco, California, U.S.
• Escalators, New Construction. Otis Elevator Co. for the Elizabeth Line, London Underground and Railway, London, U.K.
• Escalators, Modernization. Otis for Singapore Mass Rapid Transit, Singapore
• Inclined Lifts. Hill Hiker for the KSA Expo 2020 Pavilion, Dubai, U.A.E.
• Platform Lifts and Stairway Chairlifts. Day Elevator & Lift for Earl Hall, Columbia University, New York, New York, U.S.
• Private-Residence Lifts. Global Tardif and ElPro Elevators & Lifts for Crescent Heights in Calgary, Alberta, Canada
• Special-Purpose Lifts. Eshel Lifts Ltd. for CASA Boutique Hotel in Nahariya, Israel

We recently attended two gatherings of elevator people in the European area. GEE Milan by Angie C. Baldwin reports on the first edition of the Global Elevator Exhibition, which attracted OEMs and many others to exhibit at Fiera Milano. An excellent conference was held in combination with the expo. Champagne, Castles and Collaboration by Kaija Wilkinson highlights the fourth IEES, a collaboration of Liftinstituut and ELEVATOR WORLD. It was held in Edinburgh, Scotland, bringing together leaders to discuss most important topics.

Our focus this month is Digitalization, and there are three articles on the topic.

• Connected Lifts. Digital Evolution. by Julio Gil and Pedro Fernández. This is a wide-ranging article on all the many new forms of computer, elevator and human interaction now and in the future.
• Rethinking IoT in the Elevator Industry by Rob Wurth. The author estimates that 6.5% of elevators use the Internet of Things (IoT). He recommends the industry rethink IoT usage, so we don’t lose control over its impact on customers.
• IoT Takes the Elevator World into Industry 5.0 by Christian-Erik Thoeny. Standalone elevators are being replaced with networked VT systems with a common operating system.

Two other articles of interest are A Growth That Continues to Rise by Olga Quintanilla Marful, which describes the elevator market growth in Spain; and Elevating the VW “Bulli” by Undine Stricker-Berghoff, about how an extremely large elevator is worked into the production at the Volkswagen plant.

We hope you enjoy this issue and look forward to hearing from you at ricia@elevatorworld.com