the chairdrive project allowed us to prove that GP's abilities exceed the creation of innovative design by demonstrating our agile and fast co-operation combined with the renowned GP design quality. on december 17^th 2004 christoph hinteregger, head of engineering at doppelmayr, called us with an interesting request. two days before christmas I met the engineers for a briefing and we took the next step towards the realization of an idea, the technical fruition. shortly after new year 2005, we proudly presented the first concepts ...

let's get ready to rumble

the challenger: doppelmayr, the world-leading manufacturer for ropeways.

the mission: redesign of the drive for fixed clamped chairlifts. a new approach. an elaborated, inviting and nifty new machine.

the challenge: regulations and standards need to be taken into consideration when designing a new lift station. technical and economical guidelines have to be fulfilled. technical equipment, such as the engine, cooling radiators, the gearbox, etc. have only little space to be accommodated.

we had to address the issues of the production of the covers: either using a polygonal edge bending or a smoothly, one-dimensional bent sheet metal. no welding, just screwed and many more questions needed to find solutions. another opportunity offered the integration of an emergency engine into the housing. but how would it influence the shape?

the basic approach: engineers and designers had to work hand in hand to reduce the number of parts compared to the prior model.

the alteration of a paradigm

we started to draw sketches of various big objects. a chair drive is something big. it is considered as architecture. during a team meeting an interesting question arose: »what if we treat something big as if it was small, like a hairdryer for instance?« the idea was simple: don't consider the chairdrive as a piece of architecture, handle it like a big, oversized product. a new dimension of shapes was unleashed and our imagination grew bigger than the chairdrive. components can hang down instead of standing up. cladding only where it is essential, just as you would handle a motorbike. feedstock [like meshed metal baffle] where needed, smooth materials near-by users.

now we had to bring up initial ideas to simplify production: curvatures in only two dimensions, no spacious deforming. we also strove for avoidance of aligned elements to widen the tolerance in the manufacturing process.

during this enquiring sketching phase three design concepts emerged: we named them after three skiing areas: arlberg, westendorf and diamond peak.

design concepts:

1. arlberg

the fundamental idea: avoid cladding and create a harmonious transition between the cladded switching cabinet/engine and the uncladded/undisguised technology/rope pulley. we integrated a step to facilitate maintenance and an inspection glass.