If Walmart is where normal America gathers, then here is where much of the stuff Americans order online comes from: Amazon fulfillment centers.
For its “Amazon Unpacked” series, UK’s The Financial Times Weekend Magazine got photographer Ben Roberts a pass into the hyper-systematized environs of one of Amazon.com’s ginormous—roughly the length of nine football fields—fulfillment warehouses. The facility in Rugeley, England, is an expansive structure flooded with natural light and imbued with the sterility and efficiency of a major hospital. Here, employees can walk between seven and 15 miles a day, and they don’t meander; the warehouse gets 35 orders a second and worker productivity is measured via handheld device. Architizer calls it “a warehouse employee’s worst nightmare,” but with all the organization, light, and crisp colors, the space seems pretty ideal for a warehouse—particularly if an employee were training for a 10K or something.
When looking at these pictures, they seem like they could either represent the possibilities of our future (think of what is on all those shelves!) or represent cold, calculating buildings that are all about feeding a consumerist economy in the most efficient way. Either way, their scale alone is impressive.
Combined with my post over the weekend about subway facades, these images could be part of a larger series on the infrastructure behind the 2013 world. When people order from Amazon, they are not likely to think about all that it takes to get the product from a factory to a distribution center and then to their door/mailbox. Yet, they know it all works and like the results. Or, think about the data centers built in places like Iowa to handle all of the information flowing through the Internet. Or, the distribution centers behind Walmart or that helped Netflix quickly ship out DVDs years ago. All of this is relatively hidden in faceless warehouses away from the consumer.