“It’s the door you can open with one finger.” For nearly a century, architects looking to increase access to their buildings while optimizing efficiency have remembered Ellison Bronze’s signature slogan and turned to the manufacturer for their balanced door. Invented in 1927 and meticulously enhanced to the present day, this Ellison door creates entrances and exits that anyone can use. And so many have, from New York — where Frank Gehry’s undulating Tribeca luxury skyscraper sports custom stainless steel doors — to San Francisco at the LEED Platinum Exploratorium.
Frank Gehry’s Beekman Tower, New York City
The secret to Ellison’s success is, well, “balance” of technical know-how and aesthetic versatility combined with attention to durability. That means a balanced door will look good through the life of a building and last as long, too.
Frank Gehry’s Beekman Tower, New York City
It begins with some clever geometry: We’ve all tugged at the brass handle of a grand entrance, shocked at the strength required to maneuver it. This is because conventional doors are generally installed with hinges all situated on a single side, forcing users to put into motion the entire weight of the door. No matter how heavy or light its materials, no matter how much resistance there is on either side of it (caused by outside wind or internal stack effect), users have to do all the work. A balanced door addresses this by allowing a pivot at two-thirds the door’s width, creating a more balanced fulcrum point for distributing a door’s weight. It also allows the door to operate in an elliptical path, reducing door projection by a third — a true luxury for projects in crowded cities that have stricter sidewalk projection codes.
Exploratorium, San Francisco; photos by Heather Collins Roe Photography
Exploratorium, San Francisco; photos by Heather Collins Roe Photography
This innovative door and framing system has been put to the test in some of the busiest, high-traffic markets. Take its work on three of the new landmarks in New York City’s World Trade Center complex. SOM’s 1 and 7 World Trade Center and Fumihiko Maki’s 4 World Trade Center all utilize balanced doors constructed with stainless steel in a classic satin finish. Typical, tack-welded doors clearly were not strong or durable enough for such iconic projects; on average, these doors might last less than a decade. Ellison Balanced doors, on the contrary, boast subframes spot-welded to the outer frame and corners to increase rigidity, which in turn increases the doors’ longevity. Whether made of stainless steel or bronze, both frame and door faces are .09 inches thick, allowing dings and scuffs to barely leave a mark even in high-traffic areas. And few places have higher traffic than downtown New York City. Narrow stiles allowed the designers to maximize space for glazing, allowing light to pour into the lobbies and across the crowds. The doors were an undeniable success, leading to their projected use throughout the World Trade Center Transportation Hub and Oculus, where elegant form and proper function are equally essential due to the area’s combination of public transportation, retail, tourist and professional services.
World Trade Center, Building 7, New York City; photo by Joe Woolhead
Balanced doors aren’t just for glass and steel complexes, however. They are just as at home in masonry buildings such as those found on academic campuses. Take Harvard University’s McKinlock Hall, a neo-Georgian building that dates back to 1925 and is currently used for undergraduates. Ellison created formed-up bronze doors that look right at home with the brick façade while making sure any student can safely access the dorm they call home.
World Trade Center, Building 7, New York City; photo by Joe Woolhead
The Old Point National Bank in Hampton, Virginia, was built in 2014 but with an early-20th-century aesthetic, so a modernist entrance just wouldn’t do. Instead, Ellison fashioned true statement pieces with 4-inch-diameter circular cast discs applied to both exterior and interior perimeters of the door faces, anchored by elegant cast bronze grillwork. The manufacturer also produced the doors’ bronze framing, an arched transom with sidelights set into the stone opening.
Modern technology lies within the traditional aesthetic: Automation is also available in which an Ellison PowerNow low-energy operator is concealed within the frame header. When assistance is needed, the actuating arm overhead simply rolls along the top rail of the door to open. When power is not needed during manual operation, Ellison PowerNow–equipped balanced doors operate the same way as standard Ellison balanced doors — the power operator is never engaged, reducing operator wear and maintaining Ellison’s signature manual ease of operation. (In an emergency, it also syncs with the fire-safety system to keep the doors open at their full 90-degree position until reset.) Once access is granted, Ellison’s hardware is all that’s required to close the doors behind you, and that hardware — whether made of bronze or stainless steel — is made entirely in-house in Ellison’s ISO 9001–certified facility in Falconer, New York.
Options abound for balanced doors and are custom built to your specifications. Stainless steel, bronze and aluminum systems have minimum door stile widths starting at just 1 inch and minimum top rail heights of 2¾, though 3½ inches is preferred. Bottom rail heights can be as low as 6 inches (ADA standards require 10 inches, however). Frames should be at least 3 inches wide and 5 deep. Or choose wood door leafs attached to the rails in American Black Walnut, Teak, American Black Cherry, Rift White Oak, Plain Sawn Mahogany and more. Additionally, the torsion bar closer spring can be exposed or concealed to meet different aesthetic needs. And no matter what kind of frame you choose, all are waiting to be operated with just a touch of a finger.
