Buildings for Manufacturing

Buildings for Manufacturing - The profile of industrial production has undergone significant change over the last 50 years. The manufacture of heavy machinery, for which halls with a strong framework and heavy overhead cranes are necessary, has been shrinking as a sector within total manufacturing. The industries that have gained ground are those that require light structures and spaces with a high degree of transformability (flexibility). Some industrial branches (electronics, biogenetics, etc.) require spaces with a high degree of super-clean air (clean rooms). The technological changes,automation and robotization in manufacturing, transport and storage affect the design of indus- trial buildings (Lorenz, 1991).

Buildings for industry must satisfy the require- ments of manufacturing (Ferrier, 1987) and be designed and constructed in an economic way. Various companies have specialized in industrial construction: designers, contractors, steel, alu- minium, timber and concrete manufacturing firms. Such specialists have developed systems for industrial architecture enabling the system owner to apply their system for various commissions for industrial constructions.

The architecture of industrial buildings may have for some companies a marketing value. Some companies developed a specific image for the company, as did IBM. In such cases the company requires that its buildings be designed with that special feature, which for IBM means horizontally striped façade claddings; see the IBM complex in Basiano, 1983, designed by the Italian Gino Valle and the IBM Corbeil complex, Corbeil-Essonnes, France, 1982, designed by Vaudou and Luthi. Where external daylighting is not needed, industrial buildings may be designed as closed boxes with some kind of external cladding. Modular coordina- tion is universally present. Flexibility and variability of internal space enables management to carry out changes in manufacturing processes. Overhead travelling cranes and rail connections (as men- tioned above) are rarely required in contemporary industrial plants.

Industrial architecture embraced modernism and during the post-modern period retained this prefer- ence, a phenomenon that naturally is in harmony with industry’s somewhat conservative character.

Aurora Place Office Tower and Residences, Sydney, Australia, 1996, height 200 m, architect:

Renzo Piano, in cooperation with Lend Lease Design Group and Group GSA Pty, structural design: Ove Arup and Partners. The fins and sail form an extension of the curved cylindrical façade beyond the enclosure of the building and serve as protective screens to the winter gardens.

Waterloo International Railway Station, London, UK, architects: Nicholas Grimshaw and Partners.

Integrating rail, car, bus and taxi services.

A great number of excellent late-modernist and neo- modernist industrial building complexes have been designed by British architects: Richard Rogers, Michael Hopkins, Nicholas Grimshaw and others in industrialized countries are among those who come to mind. These apply new construction features: masted buildings, suspended roof structures, etc.,as is the case with the Inmos complex, Newport, Great Britain, 1982, designed by Richard Rogers.

A particularly novel appearance of certain buildings was the consequence of suspension structures put outside the roof or even outside the main volume of the building. An example of this is the Renault Distribution Centre, Swindon, UK, designed by Norman Foster (Plate 10). The masts and cables are positioned outside the building. 

This, further accentuated by the conspicuous yellow colour of the structure, created a model for many other buildings. A similar principle has been applied at the Imnos factory, Newport, Gwent, Wales, designed by Richard Rogers (mentioned above), although its structure seems to be slightly clumsier than the one at the Renault building. Another build- ing, the Schlumberger Research Centre, Cam- bridge, Great Britain, designed by Michael Hopkins, is equally characterized by its external suspension system but here its roof is covered by textile. Since these realizations a great number of designers have followed the above solutions.

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