Porter's lodge
A porter's lodge is a place in the entrance area of a building where porters do their duty. They receive visitors, residents and employees of the building, provide information and help with inquiries. Classically, it is a small room that is connected to the entrance area of the building through a kind of window, often with a small speech opening in the pane. Often these opening opens into a vestibule or porch connected by doors with the actual building can be opened only from the gatekeeper so that it retains control of access. In more modern buildings, there are sometimes completely open porter's boxes or a free-standing counter.
In particular, university accommodation in the United Kingdom , the United States , and Canada have porters' lodges. As such, one can name the majority of colleges in universities such as Cambridge , Oxford , Durham and Toronto . The gatekeepers of the residential buildings usually receive the mail from the members of the college and are the hub for video surveillance systems ( English. Closed-circuit television ) and alarm systems.
In Germany, porter's lodges are mainly to be found in public buildings such as offices, courts or police headquarters where access is controlled by the porter. This only opens the entrance doors after checking the visitor and, if necessary, registering by telephone with the person the visitor would like to meet. This prevents people from moving around the building in an uncontrolled manner.