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.

“Bringing product through the center of the building will double the flow of goods by creating two unloading/loading zones focused in one central area,” said Brady. This design also cuts the need for exterior space, allowing a total of 1,950,400-square-feet, but stacked-up on a footprint of only 523,200-square-feet. Ware Malcomb places the office space high up in the building, over the conveyor line, with access to a great deal of natural light and a huge rooftop garden. The roof will also harness solar power and include projections which will collect rainwater. “Sustainability is a part of every project these days,” said Brady, “our goal is a net-zero building.”

The other winning design, by the Canadian firm Riddell Kurczaba, looks radically different, and envisions a 25-story mixed-use facility that incorporates not just storage and distribution, but also residential, office and retail space. Called the “Swarm,” the building's small footprint will allow developers to place it in dense urban and suburban areas and utilize rail and other transportation networks to speed goods to consumers.

“Swarm distribution networks will become the future of the blended multichannel distribution network as they are integrated with traditional supply channels such as roadways and waterways,” said Brook Melchin, senior architect. “The real shift in the speed and scale of distribution will occur as these networks take advantage of channels that currently are underutilized: light rail transit and underground metro systems.”

And these urban locations could dramatically cut the amount of energy used in distribution by cutting the amount of truck use, and even allow the distribution of some goods by bicycle or on foot.

Of the designs, Brady said, “we feel like it's the beginning of a conversation.”