By far, the largest installation someone can have added to there home is a lift. Adding a small room that moves between floors is easily going to take up a lot of space and possibly compromise other rooms in the house. Having a background in mechanical engineering (before I decided to become a photographer) I have looked into this before. I covered everything from the mundane lift of you average multi story shopping department to the high end , 70 miles per hour, carbon fibre mag lifts being researched for modern city skyscrapers. These lifts all needed a lot of space, planning maintenance thrown at them especially when they have to move at speeds that a car can get up to.

Home lifts do not currently have the level of high end engineering required for a skyscrapers and that technology is not really beginning to filter down. Mostly because its not just technology that is really the most important factor in the design of these lift. Aesthetics is important for the user if these things are going to be in a place where you eat, sleep, and live. In fact this is really what developers are focusing on at the moment for the simple reason that advanced lift technology is not required or seen as commercially viable.

With this aspect now the most important fact in designing a lift for a home where space for the lift mechanism is often limited, many lifts look like unsuspecting cupboards. (You can see this design in the video featured. ) Real flair and creativity is only emerging, for a price.

The design featured here is all very well if there is space available but the average household is unable to either accommodate or afford these style of lifts. As mentioned in our people story this week, the lift is often the most obvious innovation that a house must undergo in order to make it more accessible.

It is with space and price in mind that the development of platform lift has come into the market place. The platform lift are easy to tuck away and will fit onto already existing wall or support as long as that support is able to bare the load. A moving platform is usually a first choice for a lot of the UK's needs for the simple reason that a lot of the structures in this country fall under very strict if not protective laws from altering them. While the moving platform requires very little in terms of infrastructure to support it, some customers do complain that they are slow to use.

At the end of the day, a lift is a lift and it is about the individuals needs that really define which system is best. But with so much attention being on form it is worrying that these innovations being seen in many high end buildings are yet to filter through to this side of the market.

Have you had experience with any of the lift systems mentioned or come across a new and truly awesome/awful? Do you use a lift or platform on a regular basis?