When a floorplan includes flexible design considerations, it can help health care facilities more efficiently utilize space throughout the building’s service life. Further, when door systems offer opening widths that go beyond minimum standards for accessibility without increasing swing arc trajectories, they can support accessibility and design flexibility.
Telescopic door systems support design flexibility in more areas of the built environment
Telescopic door systems allow designers to plan flexible-use areas where wall space is at a premium. By facilitating a more adaptive design, telescopic door systems can help interiors adapt to temporary or long-term changes in occupant need. These systems can also work to provide flexibility in how open an opening is at any given time – it can be desirable to have only one leaf open or have all leaves opening depending on a space’s function.
For example, in health care settings, wider openings in exam rooms can easily accommodate the movement of large equipment, allowing medical professionals more flexibility in how they provide care to patients. This can contribute both to a more positive patient experience and more efficient operation in general. In daily usage however, moving just a single leaf may be beneficial.
This flexibility helps ensure a building can utilize its space to meet occupant need in both the present and the future by allowing immediate and long-term adaptability without the need to renovate an entire area to reconfigure for openings.
Overlapping door leaves improve accessibility in health care environments
In addition to contributing to design flexibility, telescopic door systems, like AD Systems’ XtendSlide™, can help designers readily meet or exceed minimum opening width requirements outlined in the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) standards.
Among other specifications, ADA standards require accessible openings to provide a clear opening width of at least 32 inches in most cases. This is so doors can better allow the passage of patients with mobility assistive devices. However, there may be instances where a health care facility may desire openings wider than the minimum requirements—for instance, to accommodate bariatric wheelchairs or to allow a medical provider to assist a patient through the opening or to provide a more space for equipment or larger volumes of traffic to flow through.
Telescopic door systems, when specified with ADA-compliant hardware and closing devices, can help openings be more accessible without requiring large swing arc trajectories or additional approach and maneuvering clearances. This frees up areas that may have been previously unusable due to the operation of traditional swing doors. By offering more space-efficient ADA-compliant openings, telescopic door systems contribute to designs that optimize a building’s design for both accessibility and space efficiency.
Planning for flexibility is designing for long-term viability
Design flexibility has seen increased emphasis year after year—especially as the price per square foot increases across several commercial markets, including health care, office spaces and education. As project owners look to redesign these spaces for improved flexibility, telescopic sliding doors can provide a solution.
These systems support flexible openings without compromising on key performance characteristics. As such, telescopic sliding doors can support the long-term viability of a project by allowing it to better meet occupant needs in the present and adapt to future needs without a substantial redesign.
