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Sick Buildings

Door Handle’s Been Giving Me Grief

I.W. Wed 23rd May ’07

The Department of Design at Hamburg’s University of Applied Sciences is housed in two buildings: a stately old house and a 1970s add-on. The buildings are joined at the hip, siamese-twin-style, and because the floor-heights don’t match up, you have to ascend a small set of stairs when entering the newer part from a corridor of the older part.

This physical threshold is further amplified by two other characteristics which markedly change once the transition has been made: the humidity, which soars to tropical jungle levels, and door handle ergonomics, the standard of which plummets.

doorhandle01.jpg
1. Fine. It’s a door handle.

doorhandle02.jpg
2. Viewed from eye level: where did the lock go? Why do I have to bend at the hip or knees so as to see where to stick the key?

doorhandle03.jpg
3. There’s no room for a human hand to turn a modest bundle of keys once I’ve located the lock. The door frame is laquered steel, so the ensuing fumbling tends to sound like a day at the scrap yard.

What am I trying to say? It’s poor design. And it’s a bit irritating. That’s all.


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2 Responses to “Door Handle’s Been Giving Me Grief”

  1. Dawn writes:

    I feel your pain

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  2. Door Handles Dude (UK) writes:

    I also feel your pain. found your blog as we are big into handles (yawn) and this really sucks. I guess they could have just mounted the lock upside down and the escutcheon would have been on top. Wherever the builder/carpenter is that fitted it they have been spotted – shame on you!

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