editor Posted August 10, 2009 Share Posted August 10, 2009 http://enr.ecnext.com/coms2/article_bubt090805SkyGaragesSome people can't be bothered to take an elevator from their car to their condo in the sky, so they drive into an elevator which brings them to a private garage on their floor.The article notes that Martha Stewart drives her car into a freight elevator and right up to her office in a New York skyscraper.Historically speaking, this isn't new. The Jeweler's Building in Chicago used to have this for the safety of its tenants. Built back in the 1920's, jewelers would drive into an elevator and park at their offices in the 40-story skyscraper because they often traveled with samples. But after the Capone era waned, the elevator system was dismantled and turned into office space. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Porchman Posted August 10, 2009 Share Posted August 10, 2009 http://enr.ecnext.co...90805SkyGaragesThe diagram showing the crash wall addressed my first question. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lockmat Posted August 10, 2009 Share Posted August 10, 2009 Awesome idea. My question is, why didn't they do this sooner?This could be huge for the futures of sprawl cities turning urban, like Houston, Dallas, LA and Atlanta.Once this becomes more common practice, I'm sure it will allow it to be much more feasible. I wonder how much it increased the building cost of the units? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texas911 Posted August 10, 2009 Share Posted August 10, 2009 Is it excess or just more technologically logical? I'm sure in the 40's, a central A/C would be excess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LTAWACS Posted August 12, 2009 Share Posted August 12, 2009 I wonder what the numbers look like when they are modeling these sorts of buildings. How would the design change if say the tower were 150 floors and was located in an earthquake zone? Perhaps a tuned mass damper. And how would the fire codes change to allow vehicles in the building. Interesting. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
editor Posted August 21, 2009 Author Share Posted August 21, 2009 When I was a kid growing up in Brooklyn you would occasionally see small-scale auto elevators. Like someone would have a double-height garage and one car could park underneath the other. It wasn't so much an elevator, though, as a kind of fancy cantilever device.LTAWACS brings up a good point about fire codes, though. After 9/11 some cities are requiring diesel storage tanks to be kept on the lower levels, and gasoline is far more flammable than diesel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fringe Posted August 21, 2009 Share Posted August 21, 2009 But what will become of these in a few years when we have flying cars like the Jetsons? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
editor Posted August 21, 2009 Author Share Posted August 21, 2009 But what will become of these in a few years when we have flying cars like the Jetsons? You can use the space to store you meal capsules. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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