Sliding door technique
When building the APC from the movie Aliens, I had to come up with a way to make a sliding door that didn't add too much of a "mechanism" stealing space from the interior. During the whole project I was focusing on movie accurate functionality inside small spaces.
This sliding door is really effective with just a few pieces. The base for the idea is that the thin wall element matches the thin plate of the part holding the door. That makes the door slide sturdy with some friction tight against the wall. The little handle inside to the left keeps the door in place when fully closed. In this example there where not much extra space for anything. I can see how this technique could be developed further for different purposes. Color was an issue as well. For example I'd love to have a 1x1 corner wall element in dark stone, but without it I used the end slope as a stop for the door making the opening slightly narrower than 4 studs which I think helps keeping the sence of minifig scale.
Sliding door technique
When building the APC from the movie Aliens, I had to come up with a way to make a sliding door that didn't add too much of a "mechanism" stealing space from the interior. During the whole project I was focusing on movie accurate functionality inside small spaces.
This sliding door is really effective with just a few pieces. The base for the idea is that the thin wall element matches the thin plate of the part holding the door. That makes the door slide sturdy with some friction tight against the wall. The little handle inside to the left keeps the door in place when fully closed. In this example there where not much extra space for anything. I can see how this technique could be developed further for different purposes. Color was an issue as well. For example I'd love to have a 1x1 corner wall element in dark stone, but without it I used the end slope as a stop for the door making the opening slightly narrower than 4 studs which I think helps keeping the sence of minifig scale.