Description
Everything that is built is there for humanity’s sake,
for intellectual and spiritual perception,
for the sake of bodily and spiritual existence.
Theodor Hetzer, Erinnerungen an italienische Architektur (Memories of Italian Architecture), 1950
Aims of trade and industry
The majority of our food is industrially produced. Energy is created and distributed by industrial means. Clothing is for the most part industrially produced. The construction industry erects buildings that shelter us and the things in our lives. Pharmaceutical and medical technologies have been invented to protect our lives. Large sectors of industry serve for the manufacture of means of transport, telecommunication, etc. Industrial products serve in the widest sense to provide for our lives, even if they are sometimes only effective indirectly and often only recognizable with difficulty. However, the design and construction of industrial buildings also serves the people who work in these buildings. It therefore provides for our lives in a double sense. Production, assembly, and the goods in the warehouse must be sheltered; they require a huge range of objects, materials and media which must be made available. This is also true in the same way for those who design, manufacture, assemble, store and distribute the products.
Aims OF Architecture
The aim of architecture is always to demarcate, to enclose a part of the space that surrounds us at a particular site, in order to condition it for selected tasks, in this case, building for industry. The better an architect knows the purpose for which the space is to be enclosed and the site at which it is to come into being, the better he can adapt the spatial structure to the requirements of the various tasks and take advantage of the opportunities the site offers. The program always has to develop into a prognostic statement. In it, experience, knowledge, imagination, desires, hopes, and visions are manifest. They are seldom entirely fulfilled, but as a rule, they are at least partially fulfilled.
SHELTER, PROVISION AND COMMUNICATION
Shelter, provision, and communication are necessary prerequisites for manufacturing, assembly, storage and logistics. However, shelter, provision, and communication are also basic human needs, and if they are not adequately satisfied – in our buildings as well – human life is not possible. If these needs are not met, it leads inevitably to bodily, intellectual and spiritual diseases.
The things, the organisms, and the conditions from which we have to protect ourselves vary from task to task, from place to place. They do not have the same value and precisely because of their differences and their different value, should be carefully analyzed. The type of shelter and protection we need depends on the kind and the degree of the adverse effect. Removal of light, air, sun, food and drink, intellectual challenges and sensory experiences leads inevitably to disease. The type and the extent of the required supply and removal is just as dependent on the particular situation as the type and extent of the necessary shelter and protection. It is also necessary to determine the sensible and necessary amount and the type of communication. Both are dependent on time and place. It is not unusual for the needs of shelter and protection, provision, and communication to be contrary to each other, or even contradictory. That which provides optimal shelter and protection allows hardly any communication. That which optimizes communication neglects shelter and protection.
One of the essential means for satisfying these needs and an essential precondition for human life is erecting buildings. The space to be conditioned for particular purposes is excluded from the space surrounding us by means of matter. Light makes the volumes brought into being by the limitation of the space recognizable from the inside and from the outside. Space, matter and light are the means available to architecture. They can be implemented in almost inexhaustible variety to fulfill the requirements for the building.
Shelter, provision, and communication in the design and construction of industrial buildings
Shelter, provision, and communication are needs that are to be met without limitation in the design and construction of industrial buildings too. Therefore it is necessary to protect buildings, products, and people from bad weather conditions, to avoid noise, poisonous or smelly air, or at least to limit their effects. Rooms that are used by people should be conditioned in such a way that they can spend time in them, concentrate on their work, and communicate with each other.
Supplying air of the highest possible quality and appropriate quantity, light, sun, intellectual stimulus and positive sensory impressions is just as important, and contributes directly to workers’ energy and motivation. Highly qualified workers attach importance to the quality of the working environment even beyond the boundaries of the enterprise. Today, communication is a central issue in office buildings, in science and research, but also in industry. For years we have known that casual, chance encounters are extraordinarily important, and that the majority of all innovations or at least important impulses are due to precisely these chance communicative encounters.
Communication versus Concentration
Communication and concentration sometimes contradict each other. Yet both are compulsory in the field of industrial construction. The available space should be divided up in such a way that rooms or areas for individual, concentrated work are juxtaposed with spaces devoted to communication. Ideally, an independent, responsible employee should have a certain degree of control over the amount of communication and seclusion that he or she requires. Perhaps it could be possible to set standards, similar to those that apply to closing the sunscreen and controlling the room temperature or amount of air supply. However, these regulatory standards could be individually adjusted, so that the responsible employee is faced with regulations that enhance communication, while at the same time he or she is able to adapt these regulatory standards according to his or her needs, or to override them for a certain period of time.
Flexibility and system
One of the demands most often made is unproblematic reaction of the building to changed requirements – at best soundless, giving rise to no obstacles, and requiring little or no time. This is a utopian wish, for the enterprise itself often does not know what it will decide, even four weeks before the decision. Naturally, there are large differences in degree. With a structural system carefully adjusted to the recognizable needs of an enterprise, one can react to the respective changes with relatively little effort. However, it always means that the system chosen invests, with a certain amount of oversupply and thereby higher investment costs, in a more or less uncertain future as a rule. The acceptable middle ground is often difficult to find, and in every individual case must be carefully scrutinized.
In the choice of the type and the extent of the flexibility, the carefully weighed out prognosis as to possible changes takes on a crucial significance even at the point in time when the building is planned.
Within limits prescribed by the system, construction with modular systems offers great advantages for the flexible use of buildings. Systems can be tried out, weaknesses and defects can be corrected in future projects. Systems allow different solutions, but they are nonetheless not unique specimens. Construction systems have to be capable of adopting new technological developments and enabling new uses. Often the lack of adaptability to urban planning requirements is cited as a weakness of building with systems. Here at least one might be permitted to question whether that might not occasionally be due to outdated or futile urban planning requirements.
New technologies, materials, and construction methods
New technologies, materials, and construction methods are developing very rapidly, and they have a lasting influence on the design and construction of industrial buildings.
• The semiconductor lighting material LED is proving to be very powerful, requires little energy, does not become particularly hot, requires almost no maintenance and can attain up to 100,000 operating hours. Currently it is still relatively expensive, but is already being implemented in the auto industry and increasingly in the construction industry as well.
• Modifiable materials are emerging from the experimental stage and some are ready for use.
• Significant progress has been made in the glass industry in particular. For years now, it has brought forth a whole range of glass with the most favorable thermal resistance figures, with high solar protection factors, with the ability to direct light, with surprising load-bearing capacity, etc.
• Adhesive technology has made great progress and brings new possibilities into play with regard to composite material systems. Structures that do not have sufficient load-bearing capacity can be toughened up by gluing on elements made of carbon fiber. This can be very helpful, e.g. in conversions.
• The development of light-weight materials, partly as by-products of the space industry, opens up new possibilities.
• The development of computer-supported control technology permits the adaptation of buildings to changing external and in part internal conditions too, in the course of days and years, on the basis of statistical values, but also gives users the opportunity for individual control from their workplace.
Knowing the performance of the respective products is, however, the essential prerequisite for using them sensibly, and as a rule, this requires communication with the respective specialists.
Electronic media
Electronic media too have brought industry a multitude of innovations, and continually give rise to new developments that penetrate all functional areas of the enterprise. Complex tasks are precisely recorded, e.g. in order to control production, assembly, storage, and logistics. With the help of electronic media product data records, from the analysis of requirements to control of the recyclability of components, can lead to further advances in knowledge.
Computer Assisted Drawing (CAD), the Internet and many other achievements of the media era allow global communication, so that decisions can be taken remotely in virtually the same amount of time as they would be on site. The networking of developments throughout the world is easier than it has ever been. Specialists scattered around the globe can be brought together to form a pool. This is risky but also rich in opportunities. However, face-to-face encounters are irreplaceable.
Industrial buildings in different cultures
The construction and design of industrial buildings in other industrialized nations is basically the same as in Western Europe. To a limited extent, climatic, cultural, and sociological differences have an effect on construction depending on how great the differences are.
Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Slovenia, five of the ten new member states of the EU, are countries that for the most part have long been industrialized. Enterprises from the old EU like Audi or Bosch in Hungary have already established themselves in these countries years ago. There is a supply of specialists and highly qualified workers, whose wages are significantly lower than those in Western Europe. Building sites are available, it is less complicated and time-consuming to get building permissions. Markets in these countries and those beyond them to the east are considered to be strong and growing. German architects and engineers will not be needed, unless entrepreneurs specifically request them.
This reduces the initial chances for jobs for Western European specialists, but in the medium-term, improves them through the increased buying power of these countries. Heinrich von Pierer, Chairman of the Board of Siemens, gave a speech to his management at the end of November 2003 in Hotel Kempinski in Berlin, in which he reported that the last part of the enterprise where manufacturing still takes place in Germany, the medical technology unit in Erlangen, will be moved to Beijing. Dr. Hardo Braun, the deputy secretary-general of the Max Planck Society, reported a few weeks ago at the University of Stuttgart that the next Max Planck Institutes to be built will be located in China (Beijing) and in India. For a number of years now, German industry has been investing in Asian countries. Wages are much lower than they are in central Europe, as are taxes. Land is cheap, building costs are low, building permissions are often easier and quicker to get. The market is enormous. Goods that are domestically produced meet with increased consumer acceptance in those countries.
The necessary buildings are still planned in part by German architects and engineers. For several years now the number of Chinese students at German universities has been rapidly increasing. For example, 140 of the students in the Architecture faculty at the University of Stuttgart – i.e. almost 8 % – are Chinese at the time of writing. Despite obvious advantages, investments in the new EU countries but also in the Far East should be considered with much attention.
Intercultural cooperation
In the first years of my working life, there was a time when all our building sites could be reached on foot from our office. A little later, it was only possible by car or train. Now, the majority of the larger offices have internationalized, and one flies to the building sites. With globalization comes the necessity of working world-wide.
But how will we react to conditions at the other place? How have our young architects and engineers been prepared up till now to face strange, unfamiliar situations?
Where are the university courses that will prepare the future architects and engineers for these new fields of endeavor? Let us seize the opportunities that our universities offer to enable our students to occupy workplaces in the global context – qualified, and with the necessary confidence, thereby becoming entrepreneurial partners to be taken seriously. However, it is just as important that the colleagues and members of the enterprises working in other countries pass on their knowledge to future architects and engineers. A new field is opening up, one that brings to the business world competent partners, and offers extraordinarily interesting jobs for our up-and-coming architects and engineers.
Industry in the city
The nineteenth and twentieth centuries continued to react to the spread of epidemics and widespread diseases such as tuberculosis with a remedy that had functioned more or less well for centuries. To improve urban hygiene, the rogue was banished to the edge of the city. As an initial impulse, this was certainly not the wrong thing to do, and it was effective. Light, air and sun as the basis for a hygienically tolerable life were the credo for the dawning twentieth century. With the Athens Charter, the foundation was laid for urban planning rules that have become established, for example, in the Land Use Ordinance that is still in force in the Federal Republic of Germany. It is the goal of the Land Use Ordinance to prevent negative influences on habitation through the separation of different types of uses, whereby mixed uses are permitted as long as interferences are kept within reasonable limits.
This separation of functions has achieved its aim to a large extent. However, it has led to a series of side effects, which over the years have resulted in a concatenation of problems. Well-meaning and in themselves sensible laws, such those relating to noise abatement, have exacerbated the problem that is now emerging, of the increasing separation of functions in the city.
In the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, craftsmen and artisans were lured into the towns, into the respective countries, by exemption from taxes and the availability of building sites. Freyung in Lower Bavaria and also Freyung in Landshut are examples of this practice. But what chances do we have that this will repeat itself, and where do the risks lie?
Many industrial plants have drastically reduced their emissions. Nothing more stands in the way of integrating them into the urban ensemble. One problem, however, is to be seen in the reduced availability of suitable sites. Although the possibility of erecting multi-storey buildings entails additional costs for vertical access, it allows the size of the site to be reduced by up to more than 50 %. The higher price of sites can be compensated for by increased density through multi-storey development. Additionally, it allows the need for surface area for parking to be reduced by the increased proximity to living areas, the commute time to the workplace is noticeably reduced, leisure time is increased, the risk of accidents reduced, workers arrive at work with less stress, and homeworking can be facilitated, if, besides media communication, indispensable face-to-face meeting is possible at short notice as a consequence of the reduced transit.
Some of the traffic infrastructure can be dismantled. The energy requirement and the burden on the environment will be reduced by the reduction in traffic, and the carbon dioxide emissions will decrease. In addition, the enterprise opens up to the public. It becomes recognizable as part of society, becomes part of the urban variety and can raise its voice in the choir of different voices. The integration with and into the city offers the necessary density and variety that forms the basis for the quality of workplace that the highly qualified workers of the future will expect from their environs.
What does that mean for our towns? It is not impossible that they will shrink, that many of the problems mentioned above will solve themselves, that industry will disappear from our towns to a large extent. It is to be hoped that the service sector will increase in sufficient proportion to compensate. Many of the chances mentioned above offer potential for more liveable cities. In any case, our cityscapes will change.
Summary and excursus
What are the risks and opportunities for the design and construction of the industrial buildings of the future, and which fields of activity are opening up?
The implementation of media, particularly when they are more user-friendly, the heightened demands with regard to communication both within the enterprise and in society as a whole, the minimization of emissions, new technologies, materials, construction methods, and expanded means of travel and transport require new designs. In the medium term, energy and resource-saving measures and environmentally responsible policies will increasingly determine the design and construction of industrial buildings, in the Third World too.
The constantly increasing number of enterprises opening up to the public and integrating into and with society in the urban environment, the corporate sponsorship of sport and culture, the opening of the enterprise right up to the workplace in manufacturing or assembly are all challenges, but above all, opportunities. Business increasingly seeks to create an image of itself as an institution that serves society. Globalization with the help of advances in communications technologies and the expanded travel and transport possibilities brings new worldwide challenges and presents the chance of a worldwide equalization of means and resources. New fields of endeavor are opening up for architects and engineers. The complexity of the tasks is growing; many-faceted project management tasks, often contradictory, sometimes hardly realizable, will become even more interesting, but also more difficult.
In combination with other changes and risks globalization offers the opportunity for the design and construction of industrial buildings to take over a pioneering role such as the one that otherwise can at best be assumed by building for science and research, for example, in space travel. Integrating business more closely into public life, however, expands the pioneering role of industry beyond the simply technical. We will have to wait and see whether the transformation of many enterprises from producers into service providers can be bound to our cities in the long term.
In addition to all the risks, the design and construction of industrial buildings offers a cornucopia of development possibilities – let us seize them.
Originally published in: Jürgen Adam, Katharina Hausmann, Frank Jüttner, Industrial Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2004.