The Rule of Logistics: Walmart and the Architecture of Fulfillment
Jesse LeCavalier
Abstract
The Rule of Logistics examines how Walmart, the largest company on the planet, depends its success on its vast networks of buildings and the logistical systems that connect them. For Walmart, logistics dictates the design of the retailer's buildings, governs their deployment, and conditions the workers who operate them. By tracking Walmart's spatial operations, this book shows how the company's logistical obsessions have implications at all scales: from undermining the stability of architecture while investing it with political capacity; to challenging the inalienable features of locations by ... More
The Rule of Logistics examines how Walmart, the largest company on the planet, depends its success on its vast networks of buildings and the logistical systems that connect them. For Walmart, logistics dictates the design of the retailer's buildings, governs their deployment, and conditions the workers who operate them. By tracking Walmart's spatial operations, this book shows how the company's logistical obsessions have implications at all scales: from undermining the stability of architecture while investing it with political capacity; to challenging the inalienable features of locations by focusing on the aspects that connect rather than distinguish them; to blurring the threshold between man and machine in order create new possibilites for inhabitation. By doing so, the book identifies opportunities based on the features of logistics itself and argues that these concepts—including prototypes, loose forms, fungible locations, ambiguous borders, and recombinant territories—can help us think differently as we confront some of the contemporary challenges facing architecture and the city.
Keywords:
Architecture,
Logistics,
Walmart,
Infrastructure,
Urban studies,
Urban planning,
Suburbs,
Industrial architecture,
Retail,
Data
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2016 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780816693313 |
| Published to Minnesota Scholarship Online: May 2017 |
DOI:10.5749/minnesota/9780816693313.001.0001 |
