Smart Factories: New Production Spaces in Digital Transition

Abstract

Digital developments have affected humanity in industry and many areas in recent years. The new revolution, defined as Industry 4.0, is planned to ensure remote and digital machine–human collaboration for a new working life. Thanks to internet technologies, communication can be achieved in a digital network with the machines and robots used in production and the employees who manage and supervise them. In this new order, the possibility of people participating in the system remotely, leaving physical production to robots, and using smart production systems leads to factories turning into smart factories. While smart factories require a digital environment between humans and machines, they also bring humans and machines together for different functions. As a result of the digital revolution, the transformation of factories into smart factories and innovations in the production space initiates a new discussion in industrial architecture. This study focuses on the spatial effects of the smart production model of the new factory revolution. The research aims to understand how digital production processes in smart factories change factory designs. For this reason, smart factory definitions were first researched in the literature, and future factory propositions were examined. Then, in this context, smart production spaces designed and built to produce new technologies since the day the new revolution was introduced were analysed. This study aims to present a projection for new production spaces with the morphological analyses performed. As a result, this study will form the basis for future studies as an architectural criticism of the transition process.