I notice that these doors are usually found at place where there is a high volume of traffic near the door. And most of these people aren’t going through the door. So if they use a sensor, the door will be kept open most of the time.

This design is pretty odd. The whole purpose of a door being automatic (open and close) is for it to be fully automatic. It a bit silly to need to press the door panel or a button to have the door open. No one likes a semi-automatic door, this is the age of technology people, and lets face it, we’re lazy :) lol

I agree with DK that automatic sliding doors should not open for those people that are accidentally passing by too close to the door sensor. Do you know how annoying it would be for customers and others in the store to have the door open and close and nobody enters?

It’s important not to forget the “other” users that are interacting with the doors, such as personnel that need to keep track of their merchandise etc. and are alerted by doors opening and closing.

My only recommendation to improve this door would be to add a vague arrow to indicate that this is in fact a sliding door and will open to the left (I presume).

I believe this is to help with preventing air conditioning “flowing” out with accidental opening of doors.

I’ve seen this used a lot in countries with cold seasons, to keep heating in, otherwise if the doors open (because someone walks past it, instead of wanting to go through it) the heating escapes…

I kind of get a kick out of this design.

It’s a bit counter-intuitive, but also a little meta. It’s like the Stairs in the Musee des Beaux Arts in Montreal which are significantly wider and shorter than stairs usually are so that all you can think when you’re walking up or down is: “I’m climbing stairs, I’m climbing stairs.” I can imagine opening this automatic door and thinking: “I’m opening the door. Opening the door.”

Let’s not forget about the energy consumption. If the automatic door was trigger via a sensor, in a high volume pedestrian area this would cause alot of unnecessary power usage for the owner (anti-green concept). These type of designs are seen frequently in countries and cities of hi-density population (eg. south-east asia).

Coupled with everyone else’s comments regarding air-con and the holistic view (other customers, users, bystanders) the pros of a semi-automatic door would outweigh that of the full-automatic.