ISSUE 01 – ELEVATOR ETIQUETTE / ISSUE 01 – ELEVATOR ETIQUETTE / ISSUE 01 – ELEVATOR ETIQUETTE / ISSUE 01 – ELEVATOR ETIQUETTE /

Foreword

by Mehak Srivastava

Green Room begins with a quiet ascent, lifting us beyond floors into the symbolic realms of status, power, and space. Since the late 19th century, elevators have acted as the "great emancipator" of architectural ambition, enabling the rise of vertical cities like Manhattan. The elevator, however, is the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy: the higher it ascends, the more undesirable the circumstances it leaves behind. This upward movement fosters an aesthetic of repetition, where spaces are endlessly replicated across floors. The skyscraper, in turn, becomes a symbol of both efficiency and exclusion—a vertical city where the act of moving upward often means leaving behind the diversity and vitality of the ground below.

Within the elevator’s metallic confines, the journey becomes a ritual—an act of etiquette, where individuality is suppressed in favor of uniformity, a rigid behavioral code that defines its silent power. In this issue of Green Room, we interrogate the elevator—not merely as a tool of convenience, but as a symbol of vertical ambition, status, and exclusion.

We turn our gaze to the Slocum Hall elevator, a seemingly neutral mechanism that, like many others, reinforces the upward logic of modern life. Each ascent strips away the spaces below—those invisible layers that, in their absence, shape our understanding of progress. What is the cost of this elevation? What is sacrificed in the pursuit of height, and how does this climb, in its very act of separation, define our place in the urban fabric?

Articles

FREIGHT ELEVATOR

Noah Sadler

ACHROMATOPSIA

Sam Wiseman

CONFLUENCE

Kai Sorensen

ELEVATOR INSTITUTION

Shreya Potluri

BARBIE BOX

Flore Bouriex Majourau

SYSTEMIC ASCENT

Caroline Kerner

ELEVATOR CHATTER

Gia Lettieri

Credits

Editor: Caroline Kerner

Copy Editor: Ain Jun

Photography: Alex Ma

Graphics: Sam Wiseman
Noah Sadler