Design + Distribution

Warehouse Prototype for Ali Baba

DESIGN + DISTRIBUTION Peter Wong

A Warehouse for Ali Baba

2014 Third Year Fall Design Studio School of Architecture UNC Charlotte Peter Wong, Associate Professor

Š 2015 Peter Wong. All rights reserved.

Publisher – LuLu. This book is set in various forms of Eurostile.

The work in this publication is made possible with support from the School of Architecture, College of Arts + Architecture at University of North Carolina at Charlotte. http://coaa.uncc.edu/academics/school-of-architecture Inquires about this publication may be directed to Peter Wong, Associate Professor at plwong@uncc.edu.

Cover Image: David Quinn.

Previous Page: Amazon Fulfillment Center.

Final Images: Thaddeus on Public Transit, Group Photo @ Rice University

2 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Contents Wong

PREAMBLE

SITE A: HOUSTON

5 6

TRAFFIC

8

FLOWS

14

PREY

20

Flint

DROPLET

26

Cruz

HIVE

32

CELLS

38

BUNDLE

44

Quinn Hargett Vosburgh

Granados Ersayin SITE B: CHARLOTTE

50

WRINKLE

52

THREAD

58

ORDER

64

Hoppa

SLUG

70

Moore

TOXIC

76

BLOOD

82

Berrio Fee Ancona

Peterson

4 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

One Thousand and One Warehouses Preamble The work is this volume is the product of a Fall 2014 Third Year undergraduate studio in the School of Architecture at UNCCharlotte. The goals for the semester drew from formal lessons of the first two years of study, placing them in context with structural, material, and technical lessons of the advanced program.

Our aim was to work with a building type absent of monumental importance (e.g., the typical museum, library, or civic architectural program). We did however think it should be a large building, one that embraced a systemic architectural order so structure could be investigated in a recursive and repeditive manner. We selected a project for a prototypical 90,000 s.f. warehouse for online retailer Ali Baba to experiment with bay rhythms, materials, and the design of the roof. The size of the building also allowed consideration of urban and landscape issues given its large footprint and requirements for the movement of vehicles – e.g., trucks, trains, and other modes of transport.

The typical extra-urban warehouse.

In times when on-line commerce threatens brick and mortar space, designers seek new identities for non-public buildings, delivery methods, and accessible forms of infrastructure. Architecture again finds itself in transition as it seeks to redefine what is important and relevant.

Peter Wong January 2015

6 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Site A Houston, TX

The Urban Warehouse The Houston site lies a quarter mile outside of downtown, bordered by a rail line, two interstate highways, light rail, a new greenway, and a neighborhood in transition.

Is it possible to locate a warehouse in the center of the city? If so, what is the image of the new “non-industrial warehouse,” the possibility for it to be a workplace as well as public amenity or infrastructural element that serves public needs?

Albert Goodwin, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, 1901.

No longer is Ali Baba’s treasure cave a secret place, it is now accessible to public scrutiny.

The multiplicity of ideas is what I’m interested in.

- Thom Mayne

Car-City This project is an exploration in the process of distribution. Its aim is to achieve the movement of packages as fast as possible. The site of the project offers a unique opportunity to connect to one of Houston’s main arteries, Interstate 10.

The proposal locates the distribution center as an extension of the highway, therefore taking advantage of the sleepless spirit of transportation infrastructure.

The design adopts an approach that embodies the spirit of the highway, taking advantage of infrastructural aesthetics that are typically heavy, brutal, monolithic, and concrete. This aesthetic is abstracted and altered in the building’s mega-structural expression by the flow and power of the highway. Diagonal piers represent the movement and dynamic of the interstate.

Freeway overpass typologies inspire and regulate the form and structure.

Houston’s highway infrastructure.

8 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Even with new technologies, the traditional way of distributing goods with tractortrailor rigs will not change dramatically.

The country’s economy and infrastructure is built upon this system. When fuel and energy systems change, the structure of this distribution system will unlikely be replaced. Trucks and individual means of transport will continue as the delivery method for the majority of goods and materials.

David M. Quinn

Infrastructure as Architecture

Concept Diagram - barcode wrapping the box.

Barcode A barcode tag is essential to the movent and tracking of the common package. This coded infrastructural tag becomes the roof screen that wraps and consolidates the structural skeleton of the building. It also responds to the movement and flow of the highway by crinkling and bending as an imperfect shape. Openings reflect the irregular, abstract pattern of the barcode but also the pattern maximize light in the loading lane while minimizing light for the storage spaces.

10 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

David M. Quinn

WAREHOUSE

CARGO LIFTS

ADMIN

LOBBY

BASEMENT PARKING

LOADING LANE

Program distribution and order allows for expressive form.

Program The programmatic order of the building is simple and efficienct to facilitate distribution. The building is organized by a loading lane, parking deck, bypass lane, intermediate space, storage space, employee space, and administration wing. The structural logic is an adaptation of highway overpass architecture. Large pre-stressed concrete members and cast-in-place slabs. Other components include X-braced piers, upside-down double T-beams, box-beams, and hollow-core slabs.

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David M. Quinn

Off-ramp loading lane and truck corridor demonstrating the placement and sequence of goods.

Loading lane facade (West Elevation).

One is too precious about the past, the other too hungry for the future.

One arm being dragged into the past by the ethics of historic preservation, the other being yanked towards a hopeful (bigger, brighter, better) future.

- Winy Maas

The site is bound by an existing light rail, bike trial, a part of the University of Houston campus, and a future transit center.

The surrounding infrastructural and urban context, create difficulties for moving safely through the site.

The proposed design helps negotiate the urban landscape and provides passage for pedestrian traffic.

14 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Land and Infrastructure The idea behind this proposal for Ali Baba is for the warehouse to function as a bridge to connect different infrastructural elements that exist at the periphery of the site. The building acts to mediate the fine line that separates infrastructure, urban design, and architecture. Also coupled with this idea is the thought of educating and displaying the use of autonomous robotics within the field of logistics and distribution. This allows for a socially dynamic space that helps negotiate the urban landscape and provides a safe and viable solution for pedestrians that use the transit center, the University of Houston campus, and Houston’s local bike trails.

John Hargett

Interceding Infrastructure and Urbanism

Program The administration areas surround the box-like field condition similar to a conventional warehouse. This helps to provide a central location for the administration to control the normal operations of the facility. This arrangement also helps drive the concept of transparency, education, and public interaction within and around the distribution center.

The land-form ramps moving from the transit stop to the east stop down to the greenway at the west of the site allows views into the warehouse space in order to demonstrate the technological functions of the building.

16 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

John Hargett

The plan is separated into private and public areas of occupation and circulation

Floor plan of the warehouse, administration, and private areas.

Section perspective of the main circulation and administration areas.

Autonomous Robotics

Section at the “Viewing Platform.”

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The circulation through the lobby and administration is both private and public. It offers a way for pedestrians who use the lower level of the transit to navigate up to the top of the ramps. The ramps provide a “scenic” route for the public to view the drone bays. Other areas of circulation exist for an expedited route throughout the program.

John Hargett

As long as social practice rejects the paradox of idea and real space, imagination - interior experience - may be the only means to transcend it.

- Bernard Tschumi

Houston, TX The conceptual position for this project was born from the meaning of place in a true car city – one not characterized by the spaces contained but by the connective tissue. It also resulted from an analysis of what a forward-thinking warehouse might be for an aggressive and invasive retailer such as Ali Baba.

This conceptual attitude resulted in a warehouse that desired to deal with themes of placelessness, a humanless place for storage, and a building that functions primarily as a connection between various points at its periphery.

The actual building is merely the interstitial space between two lines of infrastructure for consumer goods (the highway and the railroad) which are simultaneously brought through the building. The resulting architecture is characterized not by what is built, but by the systems that make it possible.

Old distribution model compared to Ali Baba’s new model based on drone supply and distribution.

20 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Adam Vosburgh

Distribution Prototype for Ali Baba

Above: Houston - a diverse array of spaces, only joined in their connective tissue.

Right: Vultures in the wild and automated drones unloading consumer goods from trucks. The flight pattern of these drones determine the roof form of the warehouse.

22 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Adam Vosburgh

Consumer Ecosystem As trucks and trains pass beneath the warehouse, a swarm of drones picks them clean of all consumer goods, and ferries them into storage.

From there, they are distributed to the city of Houston, where they will return again to unload trucks.

The airborne maneuvering of the drones generate the form of the warehouse roof.

This canopy sweeps up in high density flight areas (receiving, shipping) and is low in profile when in transition spaces (storage.)

Interior rendering of warehouse space. Taken from office level.

Overlapping Grids The structure and envelope system work in layers. A regular warehouse grid of trusses and open web joists span between regularly placed columns. At the top of these columns is the resting place for the roof supports, that grab on to the nearest column from the grid below.

1/4� = 1’ bay detail model

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Adam Vosburgh

Exploded axon of warehouse.

When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.

- Benjamin Franklin

Water Distribution Center In a country where water is consumed faster than it can be replenished there is an increasing need for buildings to become part of the ecosystem. Houston is not immune to the effects of increasing water scarcity. Imported water will soon be the norm, therefore this warehouse functions as a water bottle distribution center.

Study model for a fabric roof structure that allows water to move along peaks and valleys.

The goals of this warehouse is to reinterpret the properties of water through various design elements. From facades that are inspired by the tension and geometry of water droplets to a fabric roof that collects and redistributes water, this bottle storage facility is symbolic of its function.

One corner of the building – housing the administrative office wing – extends over a topographical gradient and is rendered with a transparent skin. The interior of this corner becomes an interior landscape to create occupiable spaces with circulation created with a winding ramp.

Study model of perimeter edge and the sculptural nature of the fabric roof.

26 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Columns (shaped like tulips) function both to draw down the fabric canopy but also rain water as it swirls from the top of the building to subterranean cisterns.

Lucas Flint

Warehouse for a Waterless West

A Lobby Created by a Crease in the Land The entry space of the warehouse consists of a large public lobby. A ramp sculpts the three-tiered space to match that of the natural landscape. Each tier is occupiable inviting the public and employees to conduct business in casual settings. The views into the warehouse from these locations allow a glimpse of the randomly spaced columns.

Site plan of the warehouse and accompanying parking lot. The warehouse is incorporated into the trees and landscape.

Sketch model of the main lobby space. Later models refined the stairs (to the right) to a ramp (see plan).

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Lucas Flint

Mech

Conference Rooms

Kitchenette

Administrative Offices Copy Room

Lobby Foyer

Plan of the entry lobby (bottom) and warehouse with mezzanine (above).

In Opposition to Frei O.

Wall section reveals the nature of the foundation in order to resist the overturning moment caused by the canopy roof.

South elevation shows how the canopy meets the facades and articulates the interior space.

30 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

The restricted form of the building’s fabric technology lies as a critique of Frei Otto’s historic tensile structures. Rendered as a box, as opposed to Otto’s stretched tentacles of fabric without facades, the logic of a more traditional building (one that can be entered and serviced by wall apertures) overcomes the problems of Otto’s free-standing amoeba forms.

Lucas Flint

Axonometric demonstrating the major components of the building: roof, columns, facades, mezzanine, and landscape.

How did logic come into existence in man’s head? Certainly out of illogic whose realm originally must have been immense.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Parti diagram of design.

Structural model of horizontal warehouse.

32 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Jorge Cruz

Drone Hive Distribution Center of Tomorrow What if the way products were not delivered from warehouses and distribution centers via roadways? What if the distribution building of tomorrow instead centered on delivery by drone?

Various forms of delivery are integrated in the project that include: traditional truck delivery, train loading, and drone delivery.

The “Drone Tower� in this project functions as the nexus between these delivery systems. Designed for the Internet company Ali Baba, the building seeks new technologies that will put it on the forefront of retail delivery and innovation.

The drone delivery system is situated in a vertical warehouse where both drone and humans interact. The core of this tower is where the drones are stored and deployed. The horizontal warehouse is the traditional means of storage, shipping and receiving.

Exterior perspective of Drone Hive.

SITE ANALYSIS

SITE

HOUSTON CITY MAP

SITE PLAN 1:500

Houston, TX.

SITE PLAN 1:200

Immediate site with surrounding buildings.

Site with surrounding infrastructure.

Warehouse Site The design merges traditional functions of a warehouse with the new idea of vertically stacking and distributing. The warehouse is located in the center of Houston.

To the north is a low income neighborhood and the adjacent areas of the site harbors decaying industrial buildings. The new building tries to respond to these two zones by twisting and bending program components.

LIGHT RAIL

EXISTING MAIN RAIL

SECTION B 1/16”=1’-0”

SECTION A 1/16”=1’-0”

RAIL SPUR

SITE ANALYSIS BAYOU

SITE

BIKE TRAIL

SITE PLAN 1”=100’

Site plan and the relationship of the building to the greenway.

HOUSTON CITY MAP

SITE PLAN 1:500

SECTION B Sections through the warehouse and drone tower of the building.

1/16”=1’-0”

SECTION A 1/16”=1’-0”

34 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

SITE PLAN 1:200

Jorge Cruz

DRONE TOWER

DRONE TOWER LEVEL 2 3/64”=1’0”

DRONE TOWER

WAREHOUSE

ADMIN SECOND FLOOR 3/64”=1’-0”

SHIPPING & RECIEVING DRONE TOWER LEVEL 3 3/64”=1’0” DRONE TOWER LEVEL 2 3/64”=1’0” FORK LIFT STATION

ADMIN SECOND FLOOR 3/64”=1’-0”

ADMIN FIRST FLOOR 3/64”=1’-0”

WAREHOUSE FIRST FLOOR 3/64”=1’-0”

N

WAREHOUSE

First level plans.

SHIPPING & RECIEVING

DRONE TOWER LEVEL 4 3/64”=1’0” DRONE TOWER LEVEL 3 3/64”=1’0”

FORK LIFT STATION

DRONE TOWER LEVEL 5 3/64”=1’0”

ADMIN FIRST FLOOR 3/64”=1’-0”

DRONE TOWER LEVEL 4 3/64”=1’0”

WAREHOUSE FIRST FLOOR N 3/64”=1’-0”

SOUTH ELEVATION 3/64”=1’-0”

DRONE TOWER LEVEL 6-CONTR 3/64”=1’0” DRONE TOWER LEVEL 5 3/64”=1’0”

SOUTH ELEVATION View 3/64”=1’-0” of facing downtown Houston.

DRONE TOWER LEVEL 6-CONTR 3/64”=1’0”

EAST ELEVATION 3/64”=1’-0”

View facing North.

NORTH ELEVATION 3/64”=1’-0”

WEST ELEVATION 3/64”=1’-0”

DISTRIBUTION OF GEOMETRY

APPLICATION FOR DAYLIGHTING LIGHTING

Technology The primary building technology is made of steel and concrete. In the horizontal warehouse tapered steel beams are used to span the width of the building. The tapered cantilevered design allows for beams to achieve a long span with minimal columns in the interior space.

Opposite Page: Structural model of warehouse span and skin layer model.

SECTION DETAIL 1/2”=1’-0”

ELEVATION DETAIL 1/2”=1’-0”

SECTION C 1/16”=1’-0”

Elevation of tower, warehouse, and showroom.

36 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Jorge Cruz

Net + The site for this building is a plateau that receives sunlight throughout the year. An analysis shows that Texas is falling behind in solar power generation compared to the rest of the Southeastern United Sates (more than likely as a result of its large oil reserves). The objective of the project was to create a net+ building Ali Baba’s prototype.

A flying carpet roof functions as a large solar array that generates electricity. The surplus is fed to the Houston city grid.

The visibility of the building from the various forms of infrastructure and nearby highrise structures permits the roof facade to be both a productive and symbolic element in the city.

38 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Adan Granados

Solar Farm

Figure Ground - building and environment.

Ali Baba’s Flying Carpet The layering of the components creates a complex technological assembly for the roof carpet. This layer supports solar arrays and allows diffuse northern light into the warehouse. The roof levitates above the body of the warehouse as an energy layer. Below, the administration offices are pushed 6 feet beneath grade to allow the warehouse facade and roof form to be visible to the city.

40 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Adan Granados

South Elevation

Ground Floor

First Floor

Opposite Page: Study model of bay system that was anticipated in initial process work. Figure 4 depicts the final design of the bay.

Figure 1 - Detail Section

Cellular Structure

Figure 2 - Plant Cells

42 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Figure 3 - Cell Grid

The structure of the warehouse is derived from an analysis of plant and silicon cells.

Figure 3 demonstrates the layering of simplified geometries created by silicon cell geometry. Celebrating this geometry, it becomes the layer for the solar panel supports. The second layer is derived from the largest square of the pattern and becomes the primary structure of the warehouse roof. This structure is followed to the ground through branching columns, creating a forest-like space inside the warehouse.

Adan Granados

A Return to US The current socio-economic climate in the South has allowed foreign manufacturers to reinvest in new production factories in the Southern United States. In anticipation of the return of the NC textile industry, this storage facility provides necessary space for dyes and pigment supplies required by this industry.

Revival of the fossilized textile industry.

Individualization of the storage areas.

44 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Ali Baba, and its planned extension of Chinese textile business, will hold a share of this industrial market. Designed with initial and future growth in mind, the organization and composition of the warehouse becomes a compartmentalized alternative different from the typical warehouse typology. With incoming goods bundled as a unit, they are dispersed as pieces until the demand for mixed pigment orders brings them back together as a whole.

Yagmur Ersayin

Pigment + Dye Warehouse

Site

Warehouse plan.

46 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

The organization of storage spaces in the column-free portion of the plan are in contrast to the columnar field condition of the assembly spaces. The open space in the middle of the plan anticipates the movement of people and products, creating the atmosphere and character of a market.

The commercial sized products begin as square spaces, then expand in the direction of product, which becoming rectangular spaces in need of more economically sized goods.

Yagmur Ersayin

Site plan and roof studies (below).

Structure The warehouse features a “flying carpet roof� 16 feet above the warehouse floor.

This design allows for perforating the surface of the canopy to acknowledge the internal program while allowing indirect light to enter the warehouse. As the dyes require protection from the Texas heat and sunlight, the double roof thermally buffers air and allows the warehouse to receive controlled natural light.

Opposite Page: Bay model, chipboard, styrene, acrylic, foamcore, wooden dowels.

Right: Parts list for the roof.

Details of the roof assembly.

48 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

exploded bay axonometric

Yagmur Ersayin

50 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Site B Charlotte, NC

Extra-Urban Warehouse The second of two sites for the Ali Baba prototype is located in the Southeast United States, a region that today benefits from national and foreign manufacturers who require a skilled workforce but one that was historically cut off from unionized labor. Companies such as Boeing and BMW rely on complex distribution networks, suppliers, and comprehensive transportation infrastructure and thus have found homes in the Southeast.

Existing steel fabrication warehouse.

The site currently hosts a steel fabrication facility and warehouse (to be removed for this project). The extra-urban location of the site is central to rail, highway, and Charlotte/Douglas International Airport access, providing robust infrastructural support for the prototype.

Abstract Expressionism was the first American art that was filled with anger as well as beauty.

- Robert Motherwell

Evolution of form.

52 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Devin Berrio

Program Juxtaposition More Than a Sum of Parts Designed as a prototype for “one thousand and one” Ali Baba distribution centers, this warehouse features three figural components that distinguish its program. At the same time, the form of each component makes allows them to announce their distinct activities.

The public entrance is located in the first figure, reaching out and inviting the public to the interior. This piece is figured as a slim, longitudinal office/gallery. From this gallery visitors move along a path that pushes it’s way into the first space where programs are transitional, alternatively warehouse employees move off to the right. This transition is for the visitor’s experience as they move up an elevated ramp. Office employees experience a more abrupt change as they enter the staff areas and finally the warehouse.

Model view of the administration and showroom side.

Plans + Sections

3D diagram representing programmatic spaces.

54 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Organizing the required square footage for each section of the warehouse is influenced by the character of the geometries of space. The office is orthogonal, accommodating the structure of a typical administrative wing. The mid-section is more dynamic and mediates between the office and storage area that is also orthogonal to maximize efficiency for the storage racks and lifting equipment.

Devin Berrio

Sources Due to the angles and distinct figures present throughout the warehouse, a formal analysis was use to generate the combined program. Figure and field elements were used from the start of the design and an analysis of the artist Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell to help determine the regular vs. dynamic forms of the building.

Mark Rothko.

Robert Motherwell.

56 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Devin Berrio

The built product of modernization is not modern architecture but junkspace. (...) Junkspace is what coagulates while modernization is in progress.

- Rem Koolhaas

Responding to the Region Rem Koolhaas defines “junk space” as the leftovers after architectural and infrastructural decisions have been made in the urban environment. Since the Industrial Revolution “junk space” in the city increased as goods and service opportunities continue to create cause horizontal development.

Structural layers diagram.

This 90,000 s.f. warehouse project is a place for junk, housing goods for the online commerce mogul Ali Baba. However, it seeks to become a different kind of space from that challenges the idea of junk and the spaces we create for them.

The program calls for a place-specific warehouse dedicated to meeting international textile demands from a regional tradition of North Carolina textiles. The warehouse stores remaindered textile lots that are sold on the open market.

The building is a contemporary structure which serves industry, community and its occupants.

Exterior approach.

58 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Utilizing natural lighting strategies and technology the building is bright and energy efficient.

Isabel Fee

Textile Distribution Warehouse

Model of the warehouse and immediate site.

Interior perspective at the point where the building forms intersect to enable collaboration between goods and people.

Directing the Parti The intersection of the administrative thread and the structural grid of the warehouse distinguishes the working floor of the building from office sedentary activities. The larger warehouse piece is passively daylit reinforcing the parti and allowing controlled amounts of light to reach different programmatic spaces.

Site plan collage that depicts the warehouse and landscape as woven into one another reinforcing the movement of people and goods.

60 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Isabel Fee

A

B

A

B

Flying carpet roof screen incorporates larger screen openings in work spaces, while storage spaces are kept darker to protect fabrics from the sunlight.

Fabric of the Fifth Facade The roof is treated as a “fifth facade� by employing a delicate system of layers.

The first horizontal layer is a glazed ceiling. Three feet above this all-glass layer a steel frame that features shading louvers.

On top of this assembly is a parametric skin made of light-weight aluminum panels with perforated apertures for light. These panels are designed with the aid of a digital script based on the amount of light with respect to goods and activities on the warehouse floor below.

62 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Isabel Fee

The roof’s structural layers filter out the elements but allow daylight to come in.

‘The nitre!’ I said; ‘see, it increases. It hangs like moss upon the vaults. We are below the rivers bed. The drops of moisture trickle among the bones.’

- Edgar Allen Poe, The Cask of Amontillado

Premise

Vaulted wine cellar at Eberbach Abbey, Germany.

The Piedmont of North Carolina is one of the country’s fastest growing regions for wine production and vineyard culture. The theme of this project draws from these recent events. Initial ideas for the building conjure images of damp, dark vaults buried in the foundations of ancient buildings.

Light is scarce, but in isolated instances a ray pierces thick masonry to reveal the labor of the harvest and the natural curing of time. All of this guarded and held within the interior of architecture.

Important to the design of this warehouse for wine barrels is the security of a cellar, but also the integration of natural light.

The structure is a variation of vault construction but with manufactured wood members (Glulam). A central oculus in each vault allows for light to spill in from overhead.

Fan Vaulting at Bath Abby, England.

64 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Alexander W, Ancona

Variation on the Vault

East Elevation.

Longitudinal Building Section.

Site plan.

Form and Landscape The overall form of the warehouse is a derived from the landscape of a vineyard.

Linear courtyards running north to south through the warehouse are the result of pulling the conventional storage building apart to form long bars. The resulting grain runs through the building and into the landscape continuing as a garden across the land.

Form sequence diagram.

66 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

The administration wing is two stories, nestling itself into the ground, with the southern-most spaces preserved as a protected landscape. Inspired by the terraced lawn at Middleton Place in Charleston, SC and the stepped gardens at Jefferson’s Monticello, the landscape surrounding the warehouse maintains the identity of the ground’s natural slope. At the same time it is manipulated to ease the labor of cultivation and created a greater sense of formality.

Alexander W. Ancona

Loading

Warehouse

Administration

Lobby

Common

Showroom

Garden

First Floor Plan.

North Elevation.

Structure The linear grain that informs the formal aspects of the landscape are also significant to the structural logic of the warehouse.

Like vineyards where vines grow in long line trellises, the Glulam beams are supported by rows of columns as they line the warehouse floor. These beams support vaults through the use of steel connectors. The steel transfers load to the columns and are connected to four beams that merge and, in turn, supported by a column. The connectors branch from the column and hold each beam, much like a vine tendril reaches for support.

The two sizes of the vaults create a rhythm across the space and define the pattern of the structure for circulation (dynamic) and storage (static). Walls are of concrete to contrast the warmth of the wood and to evoke the aesthetic of a basement and foundation.

Structural bay model.

Variations on a structural detail: joint between Glulam beams and column.

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Alexander W. Ancona

Detail wall section and partial elevation.

Architectural Forces This project is based on a movement study of a projectile moving through a heavy mass. The warehouse program called for hunting and outdoor equipment and the metaphor of the projectile was adopted to give the architecture a means to express the nature of the goods stored in the structure.

The conventional warehouse arrangement.

The challenge was to abstract the conventional warehouse into a form that was architectural and represented this larger idea. It was through the manipulation of the conventional warehouse parti that this was achieved. This was done by extending the administration piece through the body of the warehouse and separating it from the mass of the building. This resulted in three program pieces, the administration building, the warehouse storage space and the warehouse support spaces.

Section- A 3/64” = 1’0”

South Elevation 3/64” = 1’0”

The alternative warehouse with administrative program passing through the body of the warehouse component.

North Elevation 3/64” = 1’0”

70 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Michael Hoppa

Motion Project(ile)

The first site plan with original flat warehouse.

Site Plan 1/128” = 1’0”

Site Section- A 1/128” = 1’0”

Site 1/128” = 1’0”

Position on the site.

72 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

The final site plan with articulated roof form.

Site and Plan Concepts The site plan is simple and preserves the idea of the parti. The long sides of all sections of the building are oriented northsouth to take advantage of daylighting as well as to pull the face of the complex off of main roadway. In keeping with the projectile theme a training range was placed in the administration building as a demonstration space for the goods being inventoried.

Michael Hoppa B

5 1

1

Admin. Second Floor

A

2

3

Admin. Ground Floor 6

6

7

4

Warehouse And Support Space Plan

Admin. Lower Level

Administration and Warehouse Plans 3/64” = 1’ 0”

8

Administration Building

Warehouse and Distribution Center

1. Second Floor Administration Space 2. Ground Floor Administration Space 3. Lobby 4. Indoor Shooting Range

5. Warehouse Storage 6. Forklift Parking 7. Forklift Maintenance 8. Locker Rooms 9. Lunch Room 10. Warehouse Administration Space

Support Space Second Floor

Section- B 3/64” = 1’ 0”

Section- B 3/64” = 1’ 0”

East Elevation 3/64” = 1’ 0”

East Elevation

9

10

Wall section of a bay demonstrates the arrangement of steel supports and trusses. Also shown is the masonry perimeter wall with wood skin.

Technology The repeating structural bay was a study in three-dimensional folding to achieve structural strength. The design of a typical bay led to a series of investigations that looked to a composition of scissoring roof forms.

The resulting lateral and vertical angles echo the deflections on material surfaces after projectile forces are applied, at the same time they create stability and depth for the roof structure.

Detail Wall Section 1/2” = 1’0”

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Michael Hoppa

Structural bay model showing the structural truss logic.

We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it.

-Wendell Berry

Impaired Waters of Mecklenburg County.

Green Spaces

Massing Circulation

Building Massing.

76 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Admin vs Spaces Public vsGreen Private

Warehouse Green Spaces.

Shipping and Receiving

Shipping and receiving areas.

Gre

Matthew Moore

Coal to Concrete Site Analysis Local water analysis of Mecklenburg County indicates that a large portion of water ways are deemed unsafe and unusable for human consumption due to pollution. One of the primary factors contributing to the county’s poor water standard is the pollution that comes from coal-fired power plants situated along some of these water ways. The result of burning coal produces a toxic mixture ranging from a thick sludgy substance to fine particulates called coal ash.

This by-product has been known to percolate through holding containers and into nearby water sources causing damage and costly cleanups. While there is no foreseeable substitute for coal to produce the nation’s high demand for energy, there is a new method that removes the coal ash from nearby water ways and recycles the toxic substance coal produces by using it in a wide range of building materials, fill dirt and even soil compounds that promote plant growth.

This building and site stores and distributes these building materials while leaving spaces inside and outside for the natural landscape to be reclaimed.

Ground Floor and Second Floor Plans.

Site plan.

Program Coal ash products consist of brick, tile pavers, drywall and concrete mix and will be stored according to size and purpose of the material.

Office spaces are situated along the West side of the building with the shipping and receiving on the East. In between these spaces lie the main storage area with small green areas that remain uncovered to allow for plant and tree growth which help to reintroduce nature back into the landscape.

78 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Matthew Moore

Elevations and sections.

Load and Unload The configuration of the plan was determined by the existing rail spur on site.

This oblique connection, in contrast to the structural grain of the warehouse, permits this loading and unloading activity to be of importance to the building’s function.

Rail line at loading dock.

Roof of the loading dock as it meets the warehouse.

80 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Matthew Moore

Axonometric of a typical structural bay in a the warehouse portion of the building.

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Extended Building Section 1/32”=1’

Long building section (bottom) and section collage (top).

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DISTRIBUTION CENTER PROJECT ARCH 3101 – 003 • FALL 2014 PETERSON |

82 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Nicole Peterson

Plasma Distribution Center Roof Plane

Lightwell

Administrative and laboratories

Storage and work space

Green space

Building foot print

DISTRIBUTION CENTER PROJECT ARCH 3101 – 003 • FALL 2014 PETERSON |

Exploded axon of building and program diagram.

Project Objectives Charlotte, NC is a major blood distribution city for North Carolina and South Carolina. When researching this service it was found that blood is stored at differing temperature levels to accommodate long and short-term storage. Long-term blood storage is kept at zero degrees Fahrenheit, mid-term blood kept at 28 degrees Fahrenheit, and short-term blood is kept at 34 degrees Fahrenheit. This data was used to help form and organize the warehouse.

The topographic nature of the site allowed a portion of the building to be partially buried. The different storage temperature zones and thermal protection from the earth provided the correct site placement and form parti for the building.

3,650 Days

e

Storage by tim

ininstrative and

Primary Adm in Site/ Roof

Building with

e

Blood Storag

Lab Spaces

pattern

PROJECT N CENTER

DISTRIBUTIO ARCH 3101 – PETERSON |

003 • FALL 2014

Location/ Neighborhood Map Site Overview 1”=500’

strative and Lab

Primary Adminin Building within

e

Blood Storag

Spaces

tern

Site/ Roof pat

294 days 3,650 Days

JECT CENTER PRO TRIBUTION

DIS

003 • FALL ARCH 3101 –

294 day 3,650 Days

2014

PETERSON |

10 days

Building within Site/ Roof pattern

Primary Admininstrative and Lab Spaces

Topography of site and bird’s eye roof plan view. instrative and

Primary Admin

Lab Spaces

Blo

od Storage

e Storage by tim Blood Storage

Storage by time

Diagrams of warehouse, administrative, and main program elements.

DISTRIBUTION CENTER PROJECT ARCH 3101 – 003 • FALL 2014 PETERSON |

Site Situated next to the airport, the site provides convenient access to both roadways and air routes. On the immediate site, the hill in the topography was useful in burying the building for maximum insulation value.

The slope of the roof along with green plantings further help to take advantage of land-form building strategies.

84 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Nicole Peterson

West Elevation 1/16”=1’

North Elevation 1/16”=1’

DISTRIBUTION CENTER PROJECT ARCH 3101 – 003 • FALL 2014 PETERSON |

Second Floor 1/32”=1’

Admin midterm storage

long term storage

secondary admin

Short term storage

Ground Floor 1/32”=1’

loading/unloading

Structure The structure consisted of 50’x24’ bays composed of long-span castellated girders and standard steel joists connecting in the short direction. The castellated structure is doubled to support fritted glass skylights that are placed randomly in the bay system. These skylights help to bring light into the windowless warehouse. The directional logic of the bays form a spiral pattern to represent the sequence and movement on the warehouse floor.

Structural Plan 1/32”=1’

Structural Materials

Partial Elevation 1/2”=1’

ON CENTER PROJECT

3 • FALL 2014

North elevation.

86 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

Partial Section 1/2”=1’

Nicole Peterson

Exploded Bay Axon 3/32”= 1’ Typical warehouse bay consisting of castellated girders and structural steel joists.

RIBUTION CENTER PROJECT

3101 – 003 • FALL 2014

ON |

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Alexander Ancona Devin Berrio Jorge Cruz Yagmur Ersayin Isabel Fee Lucas Flint Adan Granados John Hargett Michael Hoppa Matthew Moore Nicole Peterson James Piper David Quinn Adam Vosburgh

Peter Wong Associate Professor

Special thanks to Professors John Nelson and David Thaddeus for their inspired collaboration and preparation of the teaching program that contributed to the projects in this text.

88 _Ali Baba Warehouse Prototype

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The 2014 Fall Third Year Studio at Rice University with Professor Stephen Fox, Houston, TX, October 9, 2014