Door

A door is the access to an otherwise closed room. You can open it to get into the room. You can close it, and then the room is completely closed and you have your peace and quiet. The construction is wonderfully simple: a board, hinges… 

A closed door is:

Protection from view
Noise protection
Odour protection
Climate protection
Protection from danger
Protection from violence

A door is about 60 to 100 centimetres wide and about 210 centimetres high. It is hinged on one side and (normally) swings open to one side.

As a planner you always have to think carefully about which side the door should be hinged on and which way it should swing, because it needs a lot of space for this and blocks the way when open.

As a user of rooms and as a planner, this bothers me at times. Even when I want to get into the house with two heavy shopping bags and no free hand, unless I want to put everything down – open the door – carry everything in – put everything down again – close the door – carry everything to where it belongs, it is a gymnastic exercise with shoulders, chin or even mouth.

Could this perhaps be done better? With all the advantages a conventional door offers? Plus many more advantages?

Or does that already exist?

Sliding doors?

But why aren’t they found more often?

Apparently they don’t seal well enough, they make noise because of the rollers, and opening and closing is tiring because the entire door has to be accelerated and braked sideways.

My current proposal looks on the surface like a sliding door, or like a lift door, but is actually different. With this closing mechanism nothing is pushed, it is pivoted. It has no rollers, only axles. Of course the construction is more complicated than a conventional door, but it also gives us a good deal of comfort and space: it needs no room space for opening and doesn’t block any corners or walls. Little effort to operate, as the mechanism has only short travel distances and a spring almost compensates for the acceleration and braking. The simplest thing would be to electrify this door anyway (possibly with an integrated solar panel) and operate it by touch sensor. That would also make it easy to set permissions: openable from both sides, from one side only, completely closed…