WEEE Megaliths
Reorienting data centres from the metaphor of the ‘cloud’ to the earth, WEEE Megaliths addresses the facilities’ short lifespans through monument making. The project learns from Ireland’s rich archeology and replaces the tech industry’s ceaseless desire for newness with an embrace of cyclicality – data centre as a living organism that flexes, slacks, dies, and reincarnates.
Defying the sustainability targets set forth by many tech companies, the short lifespan of data centers contributes fresh mountains of obsolete gadgets and construction materials daily.
These facilities, synonymous with ‘clouds,’ typically live for 20 years, while the servers they house only last two years before Moore’s Law catches up and more efficient devices appear on the market. Ostensibly, the temporality of data centers is the only thing cloud-like about them.
Recent years have seen the emergence of new recycling technologies, but they still produce plenty of bi-products, and more importantly, their associated costs are often prohibitive.
As a result, the number of data center companies working with certified recycling firms dropped from 42% in 2018 to 28% in 2019. Construction waste amplifies these figures even further, accounting for almost two-thirds of the waste we produce. With all this in mind, we must move from the metaphor of the cloud to the metaphor of the earth.
Following that attitude, this project learns from Ireland’s rich archeology and injects an ancient agenda into the juvenile data center industry. WEEE Megaliths propose a data center construction and deconstruction complex. It reinterprets megaliths like dolmens, stone rows, ring forts and fulacht fia into a facility that operates for a century while planning its ruin-hood. Ultimate, WEEE Megaliths replace the ceaseless desire for newness with an embrace of the cyclicality of living – data center as living organisms that flex, slack, die, and reincarnate.
Location
Askeaton, Ireland
Year
2021
Status
Concept
GFA
4,000,000 sqft
Team
T.K. Justin Ng