Project Information
The Building
The space needle is an observation tower in Seattle, Washington. It stands at 604 ft, withstands winds up to 200 mph and withstands earthquakes of up to 9.0 magnitude. Visitors can travel up the tower to the viewpoint via a lift. The viewpoint has views of then downtown Seattle skyline, the olympic and cascade mountains, Elliott bay and other various islands in Puget Sound.
The Process
The course of the design, construction and installation process of the Sesame Access Systems company on the example of the Seattle Space Needle building.
1. Steven Lyons (Managing Director of Sesame Access Systems) flew to Seattle to consult Hoffman (main contractor for the Seattle Space Needle project) and Otis.
2. Steven, Karol (design engineer and systems programmer) and Andy (head of engineering) analysed the project taking into account technical solutions in terms of standards applicable in North America. All of this took place in Great Britain. There was then an online presentation with the client and companies directly related to the project.
3. After the design had been agreed and approved by the client, Andy traveled to Seattle to assess the building's compliance with the elevator's installation requirements.
4. The design has been officially approved and the elevator has been built and tested in the UK by our engineering team.
5. The elevator was then transported by sea to the Netherlands, then by air from the Netherlands to Canada, and then by road to Washington, where it waited for installation.
6. The elevator had to be designed so that all components would fit into the available space of the passenger elevator, which is currently used in the Seattle Space Needle building (without this, it would not be possible to transport the elevator to the observation desk as it was the only way to transport the Sesame system to the installation site).
7. Andy and three other engineers from the British company Sesame Access traveled to Seattle to install the elevator.
8. The Seattle Space Needle project lasted 2 years, while the construction and installation work was completed within 16 weeks.