Data as Civic Infrastructure: Windfall Prototype
Architecture Studio Spring 2022
In collaboration with Gabi Castro
Architecture Studio Spring 2022
In collaboration with Gabi Castro
This project is a data center in a proposed future where small, energy producing towns
supply localized data centers energy and land in exchange for civic infrastructure to
make data more transparent and accessible for the people. This Localized Data Center
demonstrates a prototype for a series of smaller, more localized data centers, designed
as a new town hub, with the intent to involve the community in data infrastructure.
The area needed for each service/program of the center would be calculated based off
of the town population, average street block size, and average percentage of program
usage in order to develop a modular prototype based on a computational process that
can manifest itself in many different forms based on different data inputs of different
locations. These calculations took the form of early computer punch cards, read then as
elevations for this cross axis based design.
This illustrates the prototype for Windfall, Indiana, in a town where a large portion of
the population works in energy industry, a great majority are religious, most don’t have
time to go back home to eat lunch during the day, and almost all own a car.
Systems Drawing
Cutaway Drawing
Research:
A drawing of an AWS Data Center as a product of research into existing data centers
Textile Mills: A study on existing architectural typologies impacted by technology
Closer Views of Drawings:
Zoom-In on Design Process
How the Prototype may scale in different towns
Closer look at some of the Services (Building Units/Programs) and how they are categorized and color coded
Zoom In on Building Cutaway illustrating building usage of Services as well as structure and the walkways/stairs connecting every individual Service to each other and to the main cross frame
