Industrial architecture is an umbrella word for structures built to meet industry demands. It comprises a variety of building kinds and styles that combine practicality with design and may be found all over the industrialized world.
An industrial facility’s architecture might be critical to its functionality. They require a proper envelope that facilitates the flow of the industrial process, and this is where Industrial Architects come in. They completely comprehend the various industrial processes and design efficient and useful facilities to house them. If you are looking for an industrial architect for your project, check out Stendel + Reich architecte industriel.
Industrial architecture is designed to accommodate the specialized systems, equipment, processes, and worker safety considerations of manufacturing, power generation, processing, and other industrial activities. It includes factories, warehouses, breweries, foundries, steel mills, water towers, distilleries, refineries, grain silos, power plants, and other utilitarian structures.
The History of industrial architecture
The earliest industrial buildings were built in the 1700s during the first Industrial Revolution, mostly in Britain from 1760 to 1830. However, when we talk about industrial architecture today, we mostly mean the buildings that arose in response to the widespread use of new materials like metal and concrete and mass production methods brought on by the Second Industrial Revolution of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
This innovative architectural style was created to meet the demands of companies dedicated to converting raw materials into final goods in the most efficient way feasible. Builders and architects were compelled to examine particular manufacturing methods, workflows, and worker safety considerations.
For better or worse, the design of numerous industrial buildings came to characterize the environment across the world in the twentieth century. While industrial architecture promotes engineering and practicality and can be drab, unattractive, and uninspired, it can also be beautiful.
As regions such as the United States and Western Europe become more post-industrial, with the service sector driving the economy rather than manufacturing—technology and off-shoring have evolved to render many industrial structures obsolete—these monuments to a bygone era may become abandoned blights on the modern landscape.
Converting abandoned warehouses into artist lofts started in lower Manhattan around the 1960s and is still gaining traction today. Many developers have discovered creative methods to transform decommissioned industrial buildings into stylish warehouse-turned-loft apartments, open-plan office conversions, co-working spaces, and event venues. Making raw space with its massive volumes, enormous windows, and open floor plans scaled to how we work and live today is the challenge for today’s architects and interior designers.
