Almost every elevator I’ve been in has a mirror inside. Exceptions are paternoster or technical elevators.
Does it reduce claustrophobia? Does it make the space look bigger? Does it entertain passengers?
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UK lift guy here, mirror makes a lift comply to 2 pieces of legislation.
1 EN 81 – 70 (access) mirror helps people in wheelchairs back out
2 EN 81 – 71 (vandal resistant) if the passenger kills time looking at themselves then there’s less time for them to try and break stuff
They did a study and it found that buildings could be built higher if mirrors were added to elevators as people could handle being in there for longer
Lots of good reasons here, and I’d add that for women, it also allows us to keep an eye on strangers who are standing unnecessarily close. A lot of us have had “Did he just brush against my ass by accident or?” moments in public places where people are in tight quarters. Probably not designed for that purpose, but a bonus.
I recently had a dream I was on a submarine (probably after reading about the Titan for so many days) – I felt the terror of claustrophobia for the first time in my life. I was so glad to wake up
There gotta be some empirical research on this but what I learnt/observed seems to fall into four buckets
Age of lift,
Typical lift users,
Construction budget,
Operator liability
All your suggestions are right. It makes the space look bigger so people feel less claustrophobic and it gives them something to look at so they dont get bored and reduces stress levels
You also often find mirrors outside elevators. This is to avoid boredom while waiting. There is a famous story about a housing association in the UK that received floods of complaints about how long people had to wait for the lift to arrive in their apartment block. The cost of replacing the lift system with a faster one was excessive, so as an experiment they simply fitted full length mirrors to the side of each lift door. The complaints stopped.
It’s to make it seem the elevator is going fast. Just like it has music. Something to distract you.
what is a paternoster helicopter? Like the prayer our father?
Along with claustrophobia it also gives an added awareness for safety, say if a malicious person is tucked in the corner directly adjacent to the door, you’re blind until you enter the threshold and at that point you are in the attackers range, and they control access to the buttons limiting your options to escape. The mirrors improve visibility making the malicious person feel vulnerable, giving the potential victim a chance to recognize danger, and thus limit the likelihood of elevators being the place an attack occurs.
There is a story about elevators and mirrors, where the mirrors are a distraction to take the punters minds off how slow an elevator is!
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