Luca Luci

Luca Luci's research with ADS 5 has focused on road infrastructure. In the Autumn term he teamed up with Grant Donaldson to research and provide alternatives to tackle the carbon footprint of vehicular bridges. Luca proposed a tensioned stone shallow arch bridge, that combined the traditional techniques of masonry arch building with a system of tensioning cables.

In the Spring and Summer Term the focus of his work shifted to road freight infrastructure and specifically in developing a new model for a truck stop that would be more in line with current advances in logistics and vehicular technology. Collaborating with Intelligent Mobility student Shoichi Sato, Luca introduced a new language to the typology that could be prototypical and create a visual contrast with the design of Shoichi's vehicles, the architecture and the vehicles it houses both encapsulate the different aesthetics of being sustainable in vehicle design and in architecture.

Areal perspective of detail joinery between the tensile canopy and the pier that supports it.

'IN TRANSIT'

The architecture of the truck stop is a horizontal expanse of tarmac inhabited by a sprawl of metal sheds and parking spots. This makes for a high upfront cost and doesn’t require much foresight. It takes up town sized swaths of land that in the summer become tar covered heat islands, resulting in a 300% increase in emissions of secondary organic aerosols. If the automotive industry and the transport sector is changing, the architecture that houses these processes should change as well. ‘IN TRANSIT’ is a project that does exactly that.

Luca created a prototypical approach to logistics where a rectilinear canopy containing all the logistical necessities of a truck stop could be supplemented by additional 'plug-in' services that would cater for the welfare of the drivers just as much as the state of the goods they carry.

Plan of Intermodal Truck Hub – Plan of proposed truck hub typology deployed as an intermodal transport link in Fernetti, Italy. The Logistics bar is connected to a series of plug-in services that cater both for the trucks and the welfare of the drivers.

Threshold to the Plug-In Services – Eye level perspective of gabion wall and raised stone counterweight forming the threshold to one of the plug in services. A person sits on the base of one of the columns while another one descends from a hydrogen truck designed by Intelligent Mobility student Shoichi Sato.

Eye level perspective of the outdoor area of the 'Plug-In' Café. The structure is made up of stone columns and tensioned stone beams on which north lights and the structure of the café are hanged.

'IN TRANSIT' creates a prototypical approach that can be applied and then be adapted in different contexts. A universal truck stop onto which site specific services plug in services form a hybrid that is site specific and can be engaged with, by nearby communities just as much as drivers.

Logistic Bar

The move towards hydrogen fuels means that trucks can be internalised within the structure as there are no harmful gases being released. This means all the indispensable parts of the program can be squeezed into one single rectilinear circuit all under one roof. Trucks park in the inside of this circuit and they can be loaded, unloaded and checked through a central spine that runs all the way through the volume. This truck bar is the core of this prototypical approach. It can be any length depending on the necessity of the site and on larger sites can provide a connection to rail as well. This provides the basic logistic requirements of the truck stop.

Plug ins

Depending on the stretch of road it is on and the nearby context the station will require specific amenities. The project provides a menu of possible amenities to choose from; such as warehouses, cafeterias or motel suites, that plug in to the side of the Logistic Bar to complete a site sensitive program. These plug in services branch out and feather into the landscape. They break up the hard boundary that separates these introverted stations from the context they exist in, and by doing so open up possible interactions between the workers and the adjacent communities.

Structural Component – Isonometric drawing of one structural bay from the logistics bar.

View of Capital Detail – Bird's eye perspective of the capital integrating the metal saddle onto which the canopy and the counterweight balance.

A weave of steel cables and a stone counterweight hang off either end of leaning stone piers. The steel cables are covered with Photovoltaic panels and the stone counterweights keep the weave tort. The counterweights held up by a masonry Lewis pin are adjusted through the use of a pulley and if lifted up provide the access to the plug in functions. Gabion baskets filled with rubble and stone flank each counterweight and provide a shelter for small critters. The stone column, which is the fulcrum of this balancing act, is made of individual re-purposed or discarded stone blocks, bearing the marks of extraction or previous use.

Elevation of Truck Hub – Elevation showing three structural bays of which the one on the right doubles as the threshold to one of the plug-ins.

View of inside the Logistics Bar – Eye level perspective of the the inside of the logistics bar. On the left the connection to rail and the gantry cranes while on the right the parking for the hydrogen trucks. Design of the trucks by Shoichi Sato.

Top of Photovoltaic Tensile Canopy – Bird's eye view of canopy structure covered by photovoltaic panels. The overlap between the panels lets light filter through and water to drain towards the centre.

An environmentally friendly vehicle has a very different language to an environmentally friendly building. A large part of this project was to discover a language that would encapsulate this message through its materiality. A way to cover large spans over 50m with the minimum amount of material. A language where each material is chosen to do the work that they are best at. Steel is used in tension and stone in compression.

This found language of rubble, cables and stone hardly seems the language of the future when compared to the slick trucks that inhabit it. While vehicles and transport have used new technologies and streamlining to design for the future. Architecture needs to look at its past and maybe undo some of the material preconceptions that have been gathered along the way. Take materials for their strengths and use every bit available. Helping it achieve its function by using the least amount of material and making the most of the local material.

This is what ‘In Transit’ as a project has been about. About helping this typology transition with the times, making it more efficient , in line with new fuel technologies, and the changes automation will bring. Optimise land use and using tarmac only where absolutely necessary. It's about providing facilities which are geared to the welfare of the drivers and not only the products they are carrying. Internalise its industrial workings under one roof and express externally those functions that are meant to be interacted with the drivers but also by the local communities.

‘In transit’ has transformed the truck stop, service station and inter-modal transport link into a typology that rather than eclipsing local villages brings back life in them, providing better facilities for the drivers.

Luca Luci

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Royal College of Art