Today’s Wordless Wednesday photo was sent in by David Sochaczevski, an architect with the Soltron Group in Montreal.  David saw this door near the Stitch ride in Disney’s Magic Kingdom.  At first glance this application clearly looks like a code problem, but I just couldn’t imagine Disney purposely installing hardware that would require two motions to exit.  I asked Disney about it but I was told that any information about this door was proprietary.  I asked the local fire marshal and received this reply:  “Thank you for bringing this safety concern to our department.  The configuration in the picture you provided is not as it appears and the door does function according to code requiring only one motion to open the door.”

So…does anyone want to venture a guess as to how this code-compliant door operates?  I have a theory but I’ll keep it to myself for now.  Unfortunately, I won’t be able to confirm whether we’re right unless one of the minions is headed for Disney and is willing to take a closer look.  😉

Update#1: As Dan Wiltse pointed out, this door is actually on the Monsters, Inc. ride (David’s email said that he saw it while waiting in line for the Stitch ride but it must be on an adjacent building).  That explains the design of the door – the lite at the top is for Sulley, and the low lite and panic are for Mike Wazowski and Boo.  Dan (who happens to be a fire marshal) volunteered to check out this door and report back shortly!

Update #2: The local fire marshal called me this morning and we had a nice chat about the door as well as their inspections in general.  They walk through each and every building and look at the doors (and other things) every 2 months!  Impressive!

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