Space has always been a valuable commodity within city limits, and now more than ever as urban planners have seemingly filled every lot across America’s metropolitan areas. Building up has become seemingly the only way to make room, and spaces for things like parking and delivering goods have been relegated to cramped loading docks in hard to navigate areas.
Instead of building up, Serapid, a rigid chain technology manufacturer is building down. On display at the company’s booth at AIA in New York City in late June was its Linklift actuator, which can raise and lower platforms carrying heavy loads such as cars and trucks for parking or deliveries.
It is not just about saving space though. By creating a lift that brings shipments below ground out of low temperatures, workers can be more comfortable and efficient.
“It is frigid in Korea during the winter time, so you can put a semi-truck in there and they can actually unload it indoors. You can imagine this in New York, you wouldn’t have those trucks on the street.” Carol Herriges, marketing and communications manager at Serapid said.
Herriges said the company is working with architects to implement Serapid technology into the design process but has also had success retrofitting areas that were not originally designed for rigid chain applications.
“A lot of the places that we retrofit had hydraulic systems in place, which take up a lot of space. So once you pull that out, you see how little space this actually takes, so we have a lot of room to work,” she said.
Other areas where rigid chain technology has been applied by Serapid is in multipurpose stadiums, including at the 2008 and 2016 Olympic games in Beijing, China and PyongChang, South Korea. Stage and live performance equipment is also a popular application for the company, with elevated and rotating stages adding a dynamic element to concerts and other shows.
