Technical Design Solutions for Theatre

Victorid Peterson

An Elevator Door Hinge

 

At times, the simple solution is the most enjoyable. I developed a number of ideas for the construction of a hinge for a two-panel elevator door, all of which relied upon the principles of geometry and many of which were quite elaborate. We adopted the simplest of these and were quite pleased with the results. In our production both panels of an elevator door retracted simultaneously into a pocket in the wall stage left of the door. The panels, which covered a 4′-wide opening, were built as hard-covered 1″-tube-steel frames, designed to overlap each other by 3″ at the center. In order to complete their travel simultaneously, the SR panel had to move twice the distance covered by the SL panel. A pantograph ...