Phases: today and tomorrow

Why it matters

Most warehouse projects are not on an empty field. They change an existing building: knock out an office, extend the racking, keep space for a future mezzanine. The drawing has to say what is there today, what is coming, and what is going.

In plain words

Every object carries a phase:

Phase	Means	Drawn as	Checked by rules?	Counted in capacity?
Existing	Standing today.	Normal, marked existing	Yes	Yes
Proposed	Part of this design. The default.	Normal	Yes	Yes
Future	Reserved for later, such as an extension.	Distinct line style	Yes, kept clear	No
Demolish	Standing today, coming out.	Faint, never hidden	No	Counts today only

A future zone is validated and kept clear, but it holds no stock yet, so it adds nothing to the pallet count.

In Warehouse Studio

• Select an object and change Phase in the inspector.
• Changing a zone's phase changes its contents too: re-date a storage zone and its racking follows.
• Anything imported from an existing drawing starts as Existing.
• In the DXF export, each phase gets its own layer suffix (-EX, -FUT, -DEMO), so a CAD user can switch them on and off.

Capacity at a moment

Because of phases, "how many pallets does it hold?" has three honest answers:

Moment	What it counts
Today	Existing objects, plus anything marked demolish, since it is still standing.
At completion	Existing and proposed.
Reserved	Including the future reservations.

Ask the copilot for "capacity by phase" to get all three with the change between them.

Splitting a zone

The copilot can cut a zone in two (for example "split Reserve at x = 60 m"), so one half can be dated differently from the other. The original keeps the west or south piece and its racking regenerates.

Try it

Mark your Sandbox staging zone as Existing and add a Future storage zone where an extension might go. Notice it is drawn differently and its area is not added to the capacity.

Words you just learned

Phase · existing · proposed · future · demolish.