DATAPARKS: OSLO

Fall 2016
with J. Al Shdaifat, G. Karagoz, I. Michaelides
Design III: Senior Travel Studio
Barnard + Columbia Department of Architecture
Critic: Karen Fairbanks


DATAPARKS: OSLO is an infrastructural and architectural proposal to data center developers that incentivizes the creation of public spaces in data centers, to be housed in soon-to-be obsolete parking and automobile facilities in Oslo’s city center.

Norway has become a popular site for electricity-guzzling data centers as a result of its hydropowered grid, inviting an influx of capital development. The public is missing from this exchange. Datapark provides a set of criteria to data center developers that must be fulfilled in order to build in Oslo. For every 10,000 square feet of server space built, 3,000 square feet of public space are required.

The excess heat emitted from the data servers, typically very energy-costly to cool, will be redirected to benefit the various public facilities, three prototypes of which are proposed here. A parking garage becomes a public media center, a set of parking lots becomes a marketplace and recreational area, underground highway tunnels become swimming pools and an aquarium.