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Published On: Jan 19, 2009 02:43 PM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Jan 19, 2009 02:43 PM
Fear of Heights - a most common fear, which I'm about test next week at Melbourne's Eureka Towers 88th floor, known as the Edge.
Did you know that one of the commonest most
intrusive "irrational fears" is that of heights? Known as acrophobia, in our
modern world anyone with a significant fear of height is at a real disadvantage
when it comes to daily living.
Whether it be associated with a fear of flying, driving over water on high suspension bridges, visiting friends in high rise apartments, or even climbing up a ladder to clear the leaves from your home's gutters, it can be quite intrusive for sufferers. And that's not to mention those who need to ride elevators to high floors in office buildings for their work.
Here in Melbourne, one of the tallest structures in our CBD is the Rialto Building. It's a popular office complex housing both government and private sector business, and at it apex it has a visitor's centre where behind mesh fencing you can walk around the building's roof and see 360 degree views many miles away. Then you can pop inside and have a beer, cup of tea, or soft drink to recover.
It has special one stop lifts controlled by operator so the lift heads straight for the top floor. The building has other lifts which service offices, and these are the ones I use with patients in a stepwise effort - pardon the pun - to help them get higher and higher. The ultimate aim is for them to ride the visitors' elevator on their own to the viewing area some fifty floors up.
Well, the Rialto's reign as tallest structure for viewing is about to come to an end with the official opening of the Eureka building viewing platform next week.
This is not your usual viewing area like the Rialto, CNN Tower or Empire State Building.
It seems those who run the show have decided to turn the trip to the viewing area into a theme park ride.
Whether it be associated with a fear of flying, driving over water on high suspension bridges, visiting friends in high rise apartments, or even climbing up a ladder to clear the leaves from your home's gutters, it can be quite intrusive for sufferers. And that's not to mention those who need to ride elevators to high floors in office buildings for their work.
Here in Melbourne, one of the tallest structures in our CBD is the Rialto Building. It's a popular office complex housing both government and private sector business, and at it apex it has a visitor's centre where behind mesh fencing you can walk around the building's roof and see 360 degree views many miles away. Then you can pop inside and have a beer, cup of tea, or soft drink to recover.
It has special one stop lifts controlled by operator so the lift heads straight for the top floor. The building has other lifts which service offices, and these are the ones I use with patients in a stepwise effort - pardon the pun - to help them get higher and higher. The ultimate aim is for them to ride the visitors' elevator on their own to the viewing area some fifty floors up.
Well, the Rialto's reign as tallest structure for viewing is about to come to an end with the official opening of the Eureka building viewing platform next week.
This is not your usual viewing area like the Rialto, CNN Tower or Empire State Building.
It seems those who run the show have decided to turn the trip to the viewing area into a theme park ride.
As you can see, this is not your ordinary viewing area. It's one thing to walk onto a solid concrete platform and look out; it's another to do that and also look down!
Here's how the Age newspaper , from which the picture above was taken, describes it this way:
"The glass walls, ceiling and the floor start opaque and gradually become clear as the cube fully extends three metres from the side of the building.
Soothing music followed by the sound of grinding metal and breaking glass were used for sound effects during the media preview ride today...
Project director James Cockburn said he wanted visitors to the observation deck to experience something unique.
"We're trying to go from comfortable to scary. We're sadistic I suppose," Mr Cockburn said.
"We've got an experience that is more than the view."
The Edge was built from two tonnes of 45mm thick glass reinforced between steel framework. The 2.1 metre by 2.6 metre glass cube can hold up to 10 tonnes and withstand winds above 70km/h.
But Mr Cockburn said the five minute ride is not for the faint-hearted.
"It's a glass box that's sitting on wheels and we're rolling it out from the building," he said.
"It's cantilevered into the building, so we don't actually structurally hold it into the building, it holds itself into the building."
Next Tuesday, May 15, the Edge officially opens, and I have been invited by the producer of Melbourne's top rating morning radio show on radio 3AW to join the on air crew and discuss fear of heights and its treatment. You can listen in at AEST 730am, which is GMT+10, so you can figure what your local time is from the time at Greenwich which will be 930pm Monday night.
3AW maintains an internet streaming website so perhaps if you're on the net at the time you can listen in here.
If I get a chance, I'll probably mention the Mohawk Indian tribe from Montreal who for many generation have worked in Manhattan helping to build that island's scores of high rise office towers, and who seem to have an uncanny abillity to deal with heights which many of us wouldn't dare go near.
Let's hope I can handle the Edge without losing it myself!
Posted: Friday - May 11, 2007 at 10:14 PM |