The Ropeless Elevator: New Transportation System for High-rise Buildings (and Beyond)

The paper reports the result of a 2-year long research conducted by CTBUH on the design possibilities enabled by the Ropeless and Multidirectional elevator systems, investigating how such a significant innovation (or better to say revolution) in the vertical transportation could affect tall buildings first and cities then. The purpose of the study is to prefigure the adoption of ropeless and multidirectional cabins for tall buildings mobility, with the aim to overcome the evolutionary bottleneck of the high-rise building type due to the exclusively vertical direction of transport, which limited, over the years, the design possibilities in terms of height, shape and relations with the surrounding environment. CTBUH research team, together with professionals in the field and supporting academic advisors, developed a series of design considerations on plan organizations, dispatching alternatives and on the integration of horizontal direction in the circulation, with the aim of anticipating potential and criticality arising from the application of ropeless and multidirectional systems.