Supply-chain infrastructure as architecture: a case study of Amazon in Darlington, UK

Abstract

Using its ‘fulfilment centre’ in Darlington in the North East of England as a case study, this article first assesses Amazon’s existing arrangement in the UK economy, pointing to the spatial concentration of distribution centres that makes up its fulfilment network in this area. It frames Amazon’s decade-long growth as an expansionary fix to the problems of saturation and congestion that inundate the Golden Triangle of industrial logistics elsewhere in the country. It then illuminates the business of logistics by documenting the economic arrangements brokered by multiple actors that propelled the development into motion. It recognises Amazon as the ultimate beneficiaries of recent economic turmoil by investigating how platform power allowed them to ride out recession in becoming providers of last-mile delivery services. Finally, once the various scales of governance that need to be leveraged for the space-making to occur have been established, it finishes by returning to the town of Darlington to grapple with the construction of Amazon’s fulfilment centre there. Altogether, this article argues that through its logistical network Amazon is erecting a supply-chain infrastructure as architecture, which establishes the importance of mobile horizontality to the dominance of vertical enterprises like this logistics and e-commerce giant.