CHICAGO—Giant e-commerce distribution centers have sprouted up throughout the country as retailers, led by Amazon.com, strive to fulfill the growing demand by consumers to receive purchased goods as quickly as possible. Many of these buildings encompass more than 1-million-square feet, and NAIOP launched a design competition this year to help discover how developers and architects can build distribution centers that will meet consumers' future needs and wants. The two winning designs were presented on Friday afternoon at the SIOR 2013 Fall World Conference in Chicago.

"Consumers' expectations for receipt of goods have increased from several days to 'next day' or even 'same day,'” said Matt Brady, a San Diego-based regional vice president of Ware Malcomb, one of the winning firms. “Although sophistication of product handling has improved, the instantaneous expectations are straining the current distribution/logistics model.”

Although the Ware Malcomb design would have some superficial resemblance to today's distribution centers, it substitutes traditional dock doors lining several sides of a building with a centralized system. Incoming trucks would drop off trailers in a queuing zone where an articulated bridge crane would then load the entire trailer onto a conveyor which would then move it through the facility. Next, employees, and perhaps even robots, remove and sort the loads for storage. Ware Malcomb also envisions fully computerizing the product placement to ensure quick retrieval and restocking.