F E A T U R E
BEYOND THE BLUEPRINT : THE FUSION OF FUNCTION AND FORM IN DATA CENTRE DESIGN
Data centre design is more than just appearance – it ’ s an intricate blend of logistics , energy efficiency and technology implementation . Voices from the industry share their views on achieving a balance between aesthetics , infrastructure and network innovations , stressing the necessity of synchronising real-world applications with the adaptive technologies which form the backbone of our digital systems .
Chris Mason , Senior Architect , studioNWA hat is euphemistically
W known as ‘ the cloud ’ is , in reality , remote storage and processing of data in physical locations . These locations are data centres , and they form an intrinsic part of the modern world and how it works .
Like most storage buildings throughout history , the design of data centres is driven primarily by the technical requirements of what takes place inside them rather than by consideration of their external expression or context . While there can be a visual appeal to the honest expression of a building ’ s function , in the case of data centres it tends towards the boxy structure .
Data centres are often deliberately anonymous . The move from localised to remote data storage was promoted on the idea of the removal of the physical in favour of the notional cloud .
On a practical level , there is also a security advantage in not drawing attention to their location . There are exceptions . Some data centre designs embrace the scale and pure geometry the functional requirements allow , achieving genuinely sculptural results , such as the Portugal Telecom data centre in Covilha .
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