The Last Mile

‘Last Mile logistics refer to the final step of the delivery process from a distribution centre or facility to the end-user' (Cerasis, 2021). At current exists a significant disproportionality within the processes of online delivery, abundant inefficiencies are responsible for up to 4.5 million tCO2 of carbon emissions within the UK per year. Addressing this alongside mass exploitation of an invisible servile class, The Last Mile asks: If we were to increase the visibility of delivery processes through architectural intervention, would it lead to a more sustainable and communal “Last Mile”?

The Last Mile is the proposal and delivery of a new multi-scalar civic infrastructure designed for the City of Liverpool, United Kingdom. Establishing a new cohesive city-spanning network which connects the two main import gateways that straddle the city centre - utilising the already extensive public transport within the city through modified trains and buses for the use of parcel shipping, seeking to diminish the 4.5 million tCO2 emitted within the last mile by transporting parcels on existing trips. Along this network there was then a site identification process based upon census wards to account for population density, high street conditions and public transport routes - leading to the selection of 17 walking distance appropriate sites for placement of a newly cultivated morphology - The “Last Mile Centre”. Last Mile Centres are community hubs which service online delivery of both perishable and non-perishable goods for their respective wards. Designed through analysis of the relationship between object, person, architecture and logistics. It was key to establish a new best practice for how these relationships are conducted within places in a more sustainable and communal manner - rather than the inefficient isolated incidents which the current system relies upon. Imploring a new focus of a premeditated architectural system addressing current environmental and communal deficiencies that exist within the formally recognised “Last Mile”, whilst accounting for future expansion and outcomes. Constructed through placing an increased importance upon transparency, enhanced by current automation and technologies, allowing for spatial qualities which are severely lacking in the ever-expanding opaque warehouse districts which dominate the periphery of Liverpool City Centre.