KONE have a long and well established relationship with city developers Minerva plc and world class architects Foster + Partners for whom we have delivered various lift installations. We were commissioned for The Walbrook Building due to our unique ability to understand, interpret and deliver the highly technical and entirely bespoke design of Foster + Partners and a specific requirement from Minerva plc in which our passenger lifts needed to fit seamlessly with the designed aesthetics.
The Walbrook Building includes 10 x MiniSpace scenic passenger lifts within a four car group, each holding 16 persons (1.6m/s) from ground floor to level 9 and 6 x Mid rise lifts from ground floor to level 5 and 3 x fire fighting lifts provided as standard with one being a VIP lift fitted out to the same high specification as the scenic lift interiors.
The Walbrook Building lift cabs compliment the buildings stunning visual design. All lifts have mirrored doors, black high gloss ceilings illuminated walls using LED lights between ribbed glass and prismatic inner panels emitting a stunning white glow.
Glazed lift shafts have been installed in order to bring an openness to the lift core. These provide good visual connections between the lift lobbies and the two atria. The lift shaft doors are polished stainless steel.
In order to enable the design intent of Foster + Partners to be achieved, KONE kept the visible lift workings to a bare minimum to preserve building aesthetics and limit spoiling by unsightly guide rails and trunking in the scenic lift shafts. The cladding also runs the complete height of the counterweight, limiting the visible aspects to the pulley system only. Itis finished in polished stainless steel in keeping with the lobby design. The guide system used has been upgraded in size in order to reduce the quantity and size of the guide brackets which would have otherwise looked unsightly through the glazed shaft.
The lighting solution for the lift shafts also adds to the overall visual effect and are housed between the floors at the front of the shafts enabling it to be lit at all times. A unique collapsible maintenance hand rail is also fitted to the top of the lift cars enabling this to be out of sight during normal operation.
KONE is proud to have once again delivered the aspirations of highly acclaimed Foster + Partners architects and to Minerva plc who have created a truly iconic building in the City of London.