Wednesday, June 08, 2005

I'm so easily entertained

At my new place of work, the elevators (well, the ones I've been in--the place is huge, so I haven't seen most of it yet) have light strips embedded in the leading edges of the doors. When they're open and it's safe to enter/exit, they show green. When the doors are getting ready to close, the strips begin blinking red. Then they turn solid red when it's "you shouldn't be standing there now" time.

I know, I know. Big deal. Well, I think it's a nice touch, and it's something I haven't seen before. :)

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Cool! That is nice. (And because I'm a geek, I Googled around to learn more about it.)

Jess said...

Wow. Thanks for finding that!

Unknown said...

The only design innovation in our elevators at work is that the "door open" button is huge, like more than twice the size of the buttons for the different floors. So I guess there's less of an excuse for not holding the door... ;)

Matt_Sweet said...

That is very cool. Here, in my agency, our elevator is very old, and often stuck, and it alerts you that it is approaching by with a thundering death-rattle. We have a saying here: "Pee before you get in the elevator, because you never know."

Sam said...

Has there been a rash of elevator door accidents lately that I don't know about? Seems like they're just trying to give you something pretty to look at... :)

Will said...

Well, at least your elevators work. At the one year old, 400 million dollar Stata Center at MIT we have elevators that are never all in working condition at the same time. Instead of red and green color strips on the doors we have an array of eight halogen lights in each elevator ceiling, only three of which are ever working--usually a different three from day to day.

Amazing what great equipment $400 million will buy these days.

Anonymous said...

I used to sometimes get a elevator by myself when I was a runner in Vegas for a law firm. The best was the maintenance elevator because it flew fast to each level. When it was just about to lower to the lobby I would give one big jump and it would seem like you were jumping the highest you've ever jumped. I know very prepubescent but I loved the free fall effect.
k