An important aim in elevator development work has been to achieve an efficient and economical utilization of building space. In modernization of elevators or in other projects for the renewal of old elevator sys- tems, the functional or other properties of the eleva- tor system have been improved within the scope of the spaces reserved for the elevator system. The spaces reserved in a building for an elevator system have been separated from spaces intended for other uses, both functionally and structurally. Modernization or renewal of the elevator system in a building is always quite a cost item for the owner of the building. In addition, during the modernization or renewal the building is subject to disadvantages that may give rise to other costs or loss of income to owner of the building.

In existing buildings, the intended use of a building or the manner in which the building can be used de- pends to a significant extent on the possibilities provided by the elevators in the building. Moreover, the intended use or the manner of use of the building may also change with time, in which case the elevators may be a limiting factor for the change. In this light, in regard of maintaining or extending the ef- fective and economically sensible service life of the building, the elevator system is not the only factor

but the building is considered as a whole. Therefore, obsolescence of the elevator system and the investment required for repairing it may even shorten the life span of the building because the conditions available in the building itself would not seem to provide in themselves a sufficient incentive for extensive mod- ernization operations.

The object of the invention is to enable a space re- served for an elevator in a building to be converted for use for other purposes without the conversion in- volving a need to compromise on elevator services or the performance of the elevator system or even the possibility of increasing the performance of the ele- vator system. It is also an objective to answer the above-described needs and to overcome the aforesaid problems. Further aims are functional and economical development of a building.

The method of the invention is characterized by what is disclosed in the characterization part of claim 1.

The arrangement of the invention is characterized by what is disclosed in the characterization part of claim 6. Other embodiments of the invention are char- acterized by what is disclosed in the other claims.

Inventive embodiments are also presented in the de- scription part of the present application. The inven- tive content disclosed in the application can also be defined in other ways than is done in the claims below.

The inventive content may also consist of several sepa- rate inventions, especially if the invention is consid- ered in the light of explicit or implicit sub-tasks or in respect of advantages or sets of advantages achieved. In this case, some of the attributes con- tained in the claims below may be superfluous from the

point of view of separate inventive concepts. It is conceivable that the invention can be used in the mar- keting of elevator modernization or renewal of eleva- tors, and the invention may also relate to a manner of reconfiguring the spaces in a building in such a way that the space required for the elevator system in the building will be smaller than the space taken up by the elevator system used before in the building.

The primary area of application of the invention is tall or very tall buildings with several elevators for passenger and/or freight transport, usually arranged as one or more elevator groups. The elevators in the building are replaced with or modernized into eleva- tors with a small machine room or without a machine room, and in this way some of the space reserved be- fore for the elevators is freed for other uses by separating the space not needed for elevator use from the space reserved for elevator use. Such separation may be achieved e. g. by building partitions and/or baffle floor structures and/or closing rope openings and/or by making arrangements to separate access to the space reserved for elevator use from access to the space to be separated for other uses.

A conventional solution in a tall office building of e. g. fifteen floors is to place a common machine room for the elevators of the building on the top of the building or on the top floor above the elevator shafts. By the method of the invention, the elevators can be replaced with or modernized into elevators with a small machine room or elevators without machine room, thus freeing up machine room space. The space freed up is separated for another use. In a preferred case, the elevators are replaced with elevators with-

out machine room, thus allowing the elevator machine room on the top of the building to be completely or nearly completely freed up for other uses. In prac- tice, it is often sensible to continue using a part of the machine room space in the renewed elevator system because it is not necessarily reasonable to dismantle all the structures of the elevator system; for exam- ple, it is often economical to keep the electric power center supplying the elevator system, if it is placed in the machine room, in its old place. As a main rule, however, equipment comprised in the elevator system is removed from the spaces to be separated from elevator use unless such equipment can be used for purposes not related to the elevator system after the renewal. An embodiment of the invention applicable to such build- ings is conversion of a machine room on the top of the building into a penthouse. In this case, the elevators of the building are preferably renewed into elevators without machine room and the shaft of one of the ele- vators is extended upwards, so that this elevator will provide an elevator connection to the penthouse.

In very tall buildings, elevator traffic is often ar- ranged using elevator groups such that the lower floors of the building are served by at least one lo- cal group and the upper floors by at least one local group. Depending on the height of the building, the use of different parts of the building and the height of the local groups, the building may have one or more local groups between the local groups serving the highest and lowest floors in the building. In addition to local groups, very tall buildings have special shuttle elevators, which travel between the base floor of the elevator system of the building, which usually is the entrance floor of the building, and the floors,

so-called sky lobby floors feeding the upper elevator groups. Shuttle elevator traffic may also be provided between different sky lobby floors. Very tall build- ings also often have separate elevators reserved for special purposes, e. g. elevators mainly intended for transportation of goods. The machine rooms of local groups are usually located above the elevator shafts of the local groups. These machine rooms take up a proportion of the area of their respective floors that is larger, often much larger than the proportion of the area of the lower floors that is taken up by the elevator shafts of the corresponding elevators. In many cases the elevator shafts also extend quite a way beyond the length that would be needed for implement- ing the traffic in local or shuttle elevator groups, because the machine rooms of several elevators have been combined or the elevator shafts have been made overlong relative to the service provided by the ele- vators in question for other reasons. By the method of the invention, at least some of the elevators in the building can be replaced with or modernized into ele- vators with a small machine room or elevators without machine room, thereby freeing up space from the ma- chine rooms and/or elevator shafts. It is possible to separate from the common machine room space of a num- ber of elevators a fairly large space, which can be converted e. g. into a conference room or even a multi- room flat. The machine room space required by each elevator can be taken completely or nearly completely into a different use if an elevator with machine room is converted into an elevator without machine room. If the elevator is converted into an elevator with a small machine room, e. g. like the elevator disclosed in specification FI 109596 B, wherein the machine room

area required by each elevator is at most equal to the cross-sectional area of the elevator shaft, part or even all of the machine room space can be utilized for other purposes if the machine room function can be re- located to a part of the elevator shaft where it forms no obstacle to the motion of the elevator on its path.

The machine rooms of elevator groups consisting of elevators for a large hoisting height are often in- stalled on two floors or cover the height of two floors because it is otherwise difficult to arrange the hoisting machines of especially older elevators for large hoisting heights above the elevator shafts of the elevator group. If the elevators are converted e. g. into elevators like those disclosed in specifica- tion FI 109596 B, then the machine room of the eleva- tor group can be implemented as a single-floor space and thus the other machine room floor can be freed up for other uses. In the case of an elevator shaft that is overlong in relation to the required hoisting height, by moving the elevator machine room to a ma- chine room built at a lower level in the elevator shaft or by converting the elevator into an elevator without machine room, it is possible to free up shaft space, and likewise it is possible in some cases to free up shaft space below the path of the elevator car and to separate the space thus freed up from the ele- vator shaft to form rooms by building baffle floors.

Regarding the structures it is naturally necessary to take into account the safety structures and the safety distances required by the paths of the elevator cars and counterweights as well as other shaft spaces and the matters to be considered in the placement of the hoisting machines and other elevator equipment.

The invention can also be applied in a building with a single elevator or to one elevator in a building with multiple elevators, in which case a preferred applica- tion is conversion of an elevator with machine room into an elevator without machine room, whereby the ma- chine room is freed up from elevator use partly, pref- erably completely for other uses. The machine room freed up can be converted into a conventional room, e. g. a conference room, or into a room for a special purpose, e. g. an air conditioning machine room.

By applying the invention, one or more of the follow- ing advantages, among others, can be achieved: - the space available for use in the building, i. e. the space that can be rented or sold, is increased - space utilization in the building can be rearranged, for example on a floor where space is freed up the in- ternal traffic routes on the floor can be routed util- izing the space freed up, e. g. via the space freed up or by having spaces that are taken up elsewhere by the new routing replaced with space thus freed up - the space freed up from elevator use can be utilized for placement of equipment improving the service char- acteristics of the building, e. g. air conditioning equipment.

In the following, the invention will be described in detail with reference to an embodiment example and the attached drawings, wherein Fig. 1 presents a diagrammatic view of the placement of the shafts and machine rooms in a very tall building, and

Fig. 2 presents a diagrammatic view of the placement of the shafts and a machine room in a tall building.

Fig. 1 presents a diagram of the placement of the ele- vator shafts and machine rooms in a very tall building 1, and an example of spaces that are freed up for other uses by applying the invention. The base floor 2 of the elevator system is the lowest above-ground floor in the building. The building has two so-called sky lobby floors 3,4, each of which is served by a separate shuttle elevator group, in which the eleva- tors are placed correspondingly in elevator shafts 5, 6 intended for these. The building has three local groups, in which the elevators of the lowest local elevator group travel between the base floor 2 and the bottommost floors of the building in local elevator shafts 7, the elevators of the middle local elevator group travel between the lower sky lobby floor 3 and the intermediate floors of the building in local ele- vator shafts 8, and the elevators of the topmost local elevator group travel between the upper sky lobby floor 4 and the topmost floors of the building in the topmost local elevator shafts 9. The machine room 10 for the local elevators serving the lowest floors is placed above local elevator shafts 7, being preferably supported on the ends of the shafts. Placed above the elevator shafts 8 of the local elevators serving the intermediate floors and the elevator shafts 5 of the shuttle elevators serving the lower sky lobby floor 3 is a machine room 11 common to these local elevators and shuttle elevators. Placed above the elevator shafts 9 of the local elevators serving the topmost floors and the elevator shafts 6 of the shuttle eleva- tors serving the upper sky lobby floor 4 is a machine

room 12 for these local elevators and a machine room 13 for these shuttle elevators. The elevators serving the upper sky lobby floor are very fast and efficient, so their machines are very large and therefore their machine room 13 is a two-floor space comprising an up- per machine room hall 13a and a lower machine room hall 13b. By applying the invention, one or more of the machine room spaces 10,11, 12,13 can be freed up either completely or at least partly from elevator use. A preferred method of freeing up only a part of the machine room space is to replace the hoisting ma- chines in the two-floor machine room 13 with machines of a more efficient design regarding space utiliza- tion, place these more efficient hoisting machines and other machine room equipment in the lower machine room hall 13b and separate the earlier upper machine room hall 13a from elevator use and convert it into a tech- nically and functionally different space. In this case, the elevator equipment in the machine room spaces, usually at least the hoisting machines, often the electric drive equipment and/or various control equipment and possibly also other devices in the ma- chine rooms, e. g. safety devices, such as overspeed governors or rope brakes, are renewed or modernized so that they can be accommodated in the elevator shafts and/or in smaller machine rooms and are correspond- ingly placed in the elevator shafts and/or smaller ma- chine rooms to be formed. In this connection, other possible devices in the machine rooms are relocated or renewed correspondingly. In this way, the space freed up from the existing machine room space is separated for other uses. New smaller machine rooms are sepa- rated from older machine rooms or a new machine room 15 separate from the earlier machine room is built in

the shaft space. Building a new machine room 15 in the shaft space, or placing the hoisting machine in the elevator shaft, may lead to the possibility of freeing up a part 14 of the shaft space for another use. Of the shaft spaces reserved for different elevator groups in Fig. 1, each one may be composed from one or more elevator shafts.

Fig. 2 is a diagram of the placement of elevator shafts 22,23, 24,25 and a machine room 26 in a tall building 21. According to the invention, the elevators in the elevator shafts 22,23, 24,25 are converted into elevators without machine room, so the machine room 26 will not be needed for the placement of eleva- tor machinery and other elevator equipment and at least part of the machine room is separated for other uses, in this case as a penthouse. Access to the pent- house is provided via the earlier entrance into the machine room. In addition, one of the elevator shafts 22 is extended upwards so that the upper part 22a of the extended elevator shaft reaches the penthouse formed from the earlier machine room 26. An elevator without machine room can then be installed in this ex- tended elevator shaft to provide an elevator connec- tion to the penthouse.

It is obvious to the person skilled in the art that different embodiments of the invention are not limited to the examples described above, but that they may be varied within the scope of the claims presented below.

In accordance with the examples described above, the skilled person can vary the embodiments of the inven- tion in many ways, e. g. by freeing up only a part of the space permitting of being freed up for other uses.

Within the scope of the inventive concept it is obvi- ous that details of different embodiments and applica- tion examples can be included in other embodiments and applications of the invention.

It is also obvious to the person skilled in the art that although in the preferred embodiments of the in- vention machine room space and possibly even other spaces reserved for elevator use in a building with a plurality of elevators are freed up for conversion into spaces intended for other than elevator use, the invention can also be applied for free up the machine room of only an individual elevator, even the only elevator in the building, for a new use.