Thesis Title:
Cold Ring Catalysts: Co-Opting Strategies of Urban Logistics
Cold storage is an emerging network of public infrastructures for design opportunities along the busiest logistical corridor of North America: the NAFTA superhighway.
Much of the cold chain's pull on this highway originates from the Great Lakes Mega Region, but this thesis concerns itself with the southern tail: the emerging Texas Triangle.
The critical nexus of this global-regional crossroads is the metropolis of Laredo-Nuevo Laredo: the prototype for the logistical city.
This thesis claims that logistical entities such as cold storage have had the greatest impact on the spatial development of cities. This thesis also claims that if architects and urbanists still wish to be active agents in this process, much can be learned by studying and co-opting the logic of cold storage with a set of new design protocols.
The Scenario: Increasing Cold Trade Volumes
Global Cold Storage trade volume is projected to grow by 4% per year and its capacity will likely increase along the NAFTA Superhghway. The impact will increase carbon foot print, increased consumption of water and electricity in freezing/cooling activities, accumulation of pollution (i.e. refrigerant gasses and transport emissions) at site and arriving to the site.
With the Obama administrations restoration of the Mexican trucking program and the increasing consumer lifestyle demand for time-sensitve perishiable goods, the urban fate of Los Dos Laredos are at stake. How can architects and urbanists intervene in this inevitable process?
Catalyzing Cold Storage with New Urban Protocols
The Los Does Loredos must co-opt the inevitable and indifferent logic of cold storage with a set of urban design protocols that turns them into catalysts for potential new urban spaces, forms and programs. The first mover advantage does mean something here in this unrealized game of spatial city development. The end goal of these protocols is a phased in concentric nodal urbanism that generates a healthy and beneficial impact on the local, border, regional, and global scales of logistics.
Cold Ring Catalysts: Co-Opting Strategies of Urban Logistics
Cold storage is an emerging network of public infrastructures for design opportunities along the busiest logistical corridor of North America: the NAFTA superhighway.
Much of the cold chain's pull on this highway originates from the Great Lakes Mega Region, but this thesis concerns itself with the southern tail: the emerging Texas Triangle.
The critical nexus of this global-regional crossroads is the metropolis of Laredo-Nuevo Laredo: the prototype for the logistical city.
This thesis claims that logistical entities such as cold storage have had the greatest impact on the spatial development of cities. This thesis also claims that if architects and urbanists still wish to be active agents in this process, much can be learned by studying and co-opting the logic of cold storage with a set of new design protocols.
The Scenario: Increasing Cold Trade Volumes
Global Cold Storage trade volume is projected to grow by 4% per year and its capacity will likely increase along the NAFTA Superhghway. The impact will increase carbon foot print, increased consumption of water and electricity in freezing/cooling activities, accumulation of pollution (i.e. refrigerant gasses and transport emissions) at site and arriving to the site.
With the Obama administrations restoration of the Mexican trucking program and the increasing consumer lifestyle demand for time-sensitve perishiable goods, the urban fate of Los Dos Laredos are at stake. How can architects and urbanists intervene in this inevitable process?
Catalyzing Cold Storage with New Urban Protocols
The Los Does Loredos must co-opt the inevitable and indifferent logic of cold storage with a set of urban design protocols that turns them into catalysts for potential new urban spaces, forms and programs. The first mover advantage does mean something here in this unrealized game of spatial city development. The end goal of these protocols is a phased in concentric nodal urbanism that generates a healthy and beneficial impact on the local, border, regional, and global scales of logistics.
