No more aching bones from climbing stairs. Mdm Chew Geok Poh is happy that her 73-year-old mother can now hop into her new lift, which will bring her directly to her home in the four-storey block at Tampines Avenue 4.
She is now going out more often for her walks, and has become a familiar face around the neighbourhood.
Other residents of the block also welcome the new lift, which improves accessibility and makes life much more pleasant.
Lifts at their Doorsteps
An external view of low-rise blocks fitted with home lifts at Block 906 Tampines Ave 4, with new access corridors to housing units.
This happy outcome is the result of a creative solution to create a new lift lobby and entrance that brings direct lift access to residents of half-landing blocks.
It was piloted in Block 906 Tampines Avenue 4, a half-landing block where the lifts are not located on the same level as the flats. Residents need to navigate a short flight of steps to get to the lift. A minor inconvenience for some, but for the elderly and the infirm, it can be a real barrier. Now, this need not be a hurdle any longer, as HDB has came up with a creative initiative by installing home lifts that do not require a machine room to operate.
About 90 percent of the households are satisfied or very satisfied with the new lifts. All agree that the new lifts have given them greater convenience. But more than that, they feel that it has helped them to get to know their neighbours better - a good start to creating a closer-knit community.
Home Lifts
Block 906 Tampines Avenue 4 is also the first block to be installed with home lifts designed for smaller capacity. They are more suitable for low-rise blocks where there are fewer units and less passenger traffic.
“Conventional lifts would have been too costly to implement. Home lifts provide the ideal solution to bring lift upgrading to low-rise blocks as they are less expensive than the standard larger lifts and thus more cost-effective,” explained Tan Chek Sim, HDB’s Head of Upgrading Programmes Management Unit.
Though smaller than conventional lifts, home lifts are handicap-friendly and can accommodate a standard wheelchair – once again, clearing another barrier to mobility.
Bubble Lifts
Over at Block 46, Owen Road, bubble lifts like those found in hotels and shopping malls have attracted praise and attention. Installed as a pilot project, they are the first bubble lifts in an HDB estate.
A Lianhe Zaobao reader, Mdm Xuan Gui Zhu, commended HDB’s initiative of fitting these bubble lifts at some HDB blocks. She felt they give better assurance of security and cleanliness. Apart from deterring crime, they also deter anti-social behaviour such as urinating in lifts. She even praised HDB for continuously upgrading the living environment for residents’ safety and convenience.
Residents of the block provided similarly positive views. They could see many benefits from the bubble lifts, as they allow others to look out of the lifts. For instance, children love to take them for a view of the outside.
“Using shaft-less lifts allow for an overall cost savings of about 25 percent when compared to using conventional lifts installed in concrete shafts,” Senior Engineer Tan Sze Tiong from the Building Technology Department of HDB said.
These bubble lifts or shaft-less lifts operate without a lift shaft cladding and have transparent glass panels as walls. They are suitable for mixed apartment/maisonette blocks, high-rise and half-landing segmented blocks, as well as blocks with staggered common corridors.
Depending on the performance of the pilot scheme and residents’ feedback, residents may find more bubbles popping up and down in other HDB estates.
Delivering on the LUP Promise
Senior Minister of State for Ministry of National Development and Education Ms Grace Fu went to see for herself the lift upgrading solutions test-bedded in Tampines Avenue 4 on 6 March 2009.
She said that as far as possible, all flats will be provided with direct lift access. Where there are site or technical constraints, HDB’s Research & Development studies will explore innovative solutions.
With this successful implementation, the solution will be extended to all other half-landing blocks that that have not undergone the Lift Upgrading Programme (LUP), about 129 of them.
Introduced in 2001, LUP is one of the key programmes to rejuvenate our public housing estates. Impacting some 5,300 eligible HDB blocks, it targets to provide direct lift access by 2014. About 30 percent of the eligible blocks have already enjoyed LUP.
The direct lift access for half-landing blocks, home lifts and bubble lifts are part of the innovative lift solutions that have enabled an additional 770 blocks initially not eligible for LUP, to enjoy lift access. This means that about 97 percent of the HDB blocks built without full lift access can now enjoy lifts right at their doorstops.
With machine room-less lifts, the lift motor and controller are mounted within the lift shaft, thus doing away with the need for a lift motor room. Together with the use of lighter building materials for the lift shaft, such lifts will reduce construction time and cost, and thus enable more blocks to be eligible for the LUP.