Many technological advancements have changed the way we design in the past 150 years, but perhaps none has had a greater impact than the invention of the passenger elevator. Prior to Elisha Otis’ design for the elevator safety brake in 1853, buildings rarely reached 7 stories. Since then, buildings have only been growing taller and taller. In 2009, the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, maxed out at 163 floors (serviced by Otis elevators). Though a century and half separates those milestones, in that time elevator technology has actually changed relatively little - until recently.
The past few years have seen many new elevator innovations. While existing elevator cables maxed out at approximately 500 meters in length before becoming unsupportable, UltraRope, a cable technology by Finnish elevator manufacturer KONE revealed last year, allows elevators to travel up to 1 km without stopping, double the current distance. To increase elevator capacity, German company ThyssenKrupp has developed their TWIN technology, which stacks 2 elevators within the same shaft (with an extra stop below the lowest level and above the highest floors, so one cabin can park at this spot to give access to the desired floor to his twin cabin). The company is also currently working on MULTI, an elevator system that eliminates the need for a cable, allowing elevators to travel independently, both vertically and horizontally through shaft loops within a building.
