Obsolete: loft industry
Monday, 30 December 2002
On the obsolescence of loft industrial buildings: changes in energy prices, with coal/steam and electricity becoming relatively more expensive and gasoline absolutely less expensive, have reduced the cost of horizontal transportation (particularly moving goods by truck and employees by car) but increased the cost of vertical transportation (i.e., freight elevators, powered by steam or electric motors). At the same time, mass production has increased the quantity of goods and the size of the containers they’re packed in. Ever-larger packages moving horizontally translate, in built form, into huge single-story warehouses, not multistory lofts on narrow footprints.
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