h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thanks for a great entry and for highlighting some of the problems that the less gifted among us (I include myself) can have with modern doors. I especially appreciated the note about sliding doors... abominable things, and very dangerous!

However, I would like to point out the absence of information about older doors or about some of the more creatively designed modern doors. I suspect that these oversights were due to your concentration upon doors intended for use by the general public as opposed to doors intended mainly for private use. On the other hand, they may be due to a lack of interest.

Only a couple of examples then, one private-use and one public-use:-

"Marley" doors - folding plastic doors introduced by the floor tile company of the same name and designed to save space in the "modern" (aka small) home. Every other fold sports a pin at the top which runs along a track attached to the existing door frame. When closed, a cunningly designed catch is engaged with a fitting attached
to one of the sides of the frame.

When opened and closed, the Marley door folds like a concertina within the door frame, thus saving the space that would otherwise have been used to accomodate the "swing" of a conventional door.

These doors are often found in designs that almost exactly fail to capture the look of real wood.

Major disadvantages - Too many to list but the facts that the closure catch is impossible to operate without deep concentration (and a little luck), that the pins enjoy jumping out of their track and jamming, turning the door into an obstruction, and that the plastic finish invariably splits to reveal a white, fluffy interior padding, will do for now.

Revolving doors - On the face of it, a brilliant idea. In practice, an accident waiting to happen. We're all familiar with these things and with the long history of visual gags they've inspired, so I won't bother to describe them here. I will, however, point out the latest safety feature that has been incorporated into these death-traps. Please excuse me if this innovation isn't as new as I believe it to be...I don't get out much these days.

This new safety feature somehow causes the door to stop revolving when it is pushed. I can only assume that this is intended to put a stop to the childish prank of pushing the revolving door in order to catch the heel(s) of the user in front.

This came as something of a surprise to me as I'd always assumed one pushed these doors in order to make them revolve. Not so, apparently.

There is a revolving door of this new type at the entrance to a supermarket near to my home and its component panels are clearly marked "Do Not Push". I therefore pushed one (there was a principle invoved here) and the whole contraption came to an immediate halt, forcing me to make relatively violent contact with the panel in front of me and causing normally mild-mannered customers to pour foul abuse upon me.

Definitely one for the warning section of any guide to doors!

Anyway, I'm getting carried away now. Sorry. Better get back to work before I am ejected through our own, key-card-locked-and-security-screened door.

Stay cool.

Garfield

Ah, yes, keycard doors. Hotel keycard doors need signs reading "Slip the card in at kneejerk speed, then out just as quickly, but don't hope to make it the first half-dozen times, because you need Data's reflexes to pull off the darned trick. We designed it like that on purpose. We want to hurt you. We made the handle a perfect static electricity node. That was inspired by "Office Space."