The Seed and the Bit

My project is interested in the reception and understanding of the evermore pervasive infrastructure of the internet. Through its configuration of programmatic elements, I explore, connect, and interrogate what exactly it is that houses our combined digital culture. As currently no type of building embodies the 21st century more distinctly than the data centre.

As these typologies emerged out of sight, occurring at scales where the language of architecture begins to break down, where interiors have their own microclimates and layouts become circuitry. What is to define these landscapes without a history? Here I have attempted to use the more prolific language within IT to inform my set of design principles including glitch, fragmentation, mirror and duplicate.

The evolution of information repositories stems from churches and archives to great libraries and museums to the data centre. My project derives itself from the idea that if the library today is having its own existential crisis, I seek to replace this uncertainty through reimagining: materiality, spatial configurations and function.

Each fragment of this landscape is imagined as a negotiation between a machine expressing its own autonomous existence while developing character through its own narrative. I am proposing a model for mitigation considering the growing requirements for data, through analysing its by-products and historical significance hybridising a back-up server farm with a seedling greenhouse.