AGGREGATING SUBURBIA: DIGITAL INFORMATION STORAGE AS CATALYST TO
INTENSIFY URBANITY IN SUBURBAN IOWA
M~A
by
SET
INSTU)TE
US
OF TECH-JOLOGY
Matthew J. Bindner
JUN 10 2011
Bachelor of Architecture
IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARIES
SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE IN PARTIAL
FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTERS OF SCIENCE IN ARCHITECTURAL STUDIES
ARCHITECTURE & URBANISM
AT THE
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
ARCHIVES
MAY 2011
@2011 Matthew J. Bindner. ALL rights reserved.
The auther hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce
and to distribute publicly paper and electronic
copies of thn
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in any med
Signature of Author:
Drp'artment of Architecture
May 20, 2011
Certified by:Michael Dennis
Professor of Architecture
Thesis Supervisor
Accepted by: ---Takehiko Nagakura
Associate Professor of Design & Computation
Chair of the Department Committee on Graduate Students
THESIS COMMITTEE
Advisor:
Michael Dennis
Professor of Architecture
Readers:
Alexander D'Hooghe
Associate Professor of Architecture
Brent Ryan
Assistant Professor in Urban Design and Public Policy
AGGREGATING SUBURBIA: DIGITAL INFORMATION STORAGE AS CATALYST TO
INTENSIFY URBANITY IN SUBURBAN IOWA
by
Matthew J. Bindner
Submitted to the Department of Architecture
on May 20, 2011 in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in
Architectural Studies: Architecture & Urbanism
ABSTRACT
America's Midwest experienced its most rapid growth after the age of industrialization, stretching the suburban landscape beyond our wildest imagination, to a state of ubiquity. In the case of Iowa, this suburbanization comes at
the sacrifice of the most valuable virgin agricultural land. In the midst of this
vast expansion of suburban sprawl, we arrive at the critical moment to end
this recklessness.
Simultaneously, the Internet's pervasiveness perpetuates the gross expansion of the metropolis, appending the city with enormous big boxes to house
the world's digital information. Central Iowa is now home to enormous buildings by Google and Microsoft, consuming an exponentially growing amount of
Iowa's renewable energy as it exhausts the waste heat into Iowa's rural flatlands.
This thesis offers a design proposal for an aggregated suburbia,augmenting
the suburban landscape by capitalizing on the trend of enormous data center
expansion and, simultaneously,subverting the trend of suburban sprawl. The
synthesis of data centers and a new dense suburban center allows the reuse
of otherwise wasted energy while calling awareness to the Internet's monumental physical footprint and output of waste heat. The mile-long data center
is used as a "microclimate platform" for cultural activities and space for the
public collective, providing suburbs with a public identity and heralding a new
age of industrialization.
Thesis Supervisor: Michael Dennis
Title: Professor of Architecture
4
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many thanks to the friends, colleagues, and professors who have shared the
two most incredible years with me. I have grown both personally and
professionally more than I could have ever imagined.
I would especially like to thank Michael Dennis, Alexander D'Hooghe, and Brent
Ryan for their commitment to my growth as a student over the last two years.
I would also like to thank my invaluable friends that I have met and shared
unforgettable moments with at MIT; Yashar Ghasemkhani, Daniel Daou, Chris
DeVries, Jonathan Crisman, Matti Wirth, Eva Strobel, Poone Sadrimanesh, Ari
Kardasis, Anthony Vanky, Haley Heard, Sagarika Suri, Laura Delaney
Ruskeepss, Kui Xue, Nathan Prevendar.
To Brice and Casey, thank you for your perpetual support and open invitation
for trips to New York.I am not sure I would have made it without you.
To Justin and Renee, thank you for your genuine kindness and understanding.
To Kelly and Jill, the most amazing sisters. I have only admiration and respect.
And to my family, for your warm thoughts and support.
Mom and Dad, for your truly unconditional love, support and encouragement.
I cannot have imagined doing it without you.
CONTENT
INTRODUCING DES MOINES IOWA
8
SUBURBAN
12
CATALYSTS
DES MOINES SUBURBAN CONDITION
AGRICULTURE,
ENERGY,
AND
DATA
CENTERS
18
28
AGGREGATING SUBURBIA: THE PROJECT
36
BIBLIOGRAPHY
60
INTRODUCING DES MOINES IOWA
----------
................
The suburbs and exurbs of Midwestern American cities are in a dire
state of disrepair. Although brief, the history of suburban growth of the
midwestern city of Des Moines Iowa can summarize the inadequate and
unsustainable tendencies of the current model of development. In the past
thirty years, the metropolitan population has experienced a steady expansion. Meanwhile, the surface area of the city has exploded (see Fig. 1 &
Fig.2). However rapid the metropolis grows, the land consumption is disproportionally out-measuring the population growth. The metropolis is divided into different municipalities that each compete for residential and corporate expansion. This imbalance of
heirarchy and lack of comprehensive structure leads to chaotic
and uncontrolled growth in each participating city. Outside of
the historic city center, public space and urbanity has vanished
without future promise to establish a collective public identity
through the language of built objects. Built objects, especially
those of the public and civic type have proven historically to
embody powerful symbolism in regards to its era in time, political and economic situation, and relationship to its context.
Top: View of Downtown Des
Moines from the Iowa State
Capital building. Image
courtesy of: Flickr user
IABo omerFlickr
(Accessed on May 10, 2011).
Below: from top, Greater Des
Moines urban boundary, 1994;
Greater Des Moines urban
boundary, 2010. Image courtesy of Google Earth, interpreted boundary by author.
From left: Iowa State Capital (photo by Author), Polk
County Courthouse (photo by
author), digital rendering of
the new Des Moines Central
Library (image by David Chipperfield Architects, 2004)
For example, the catalytic growth and reinvestment in the city of Des
Moines has a very clear and defined structure; it is happening around the
existing and new public monuments that the city prides itself on. The most
vibrant neighborhoods currently exist around the public monuments; the
Iowa State Capital, the Polk County Courthouse, and the new Central
Public Library.
Conversely, the erratic bursts of communities in suburban Des Moines
rarely submit to any organization of the whole. The ease of acquiring
cheap land, the lack of accessible and successful public transportation, and
the tax incentives for developers allow them to devour virgin land surrounding the city and litter it with an overabundance of tract houses, chain
retail stores, massive malls, and big boxes. However, these tendencies can
be found around any American city that is experiencing any substantial
growth. What makes Iowa unique?
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The reputation of Iowa precedes it. Agriculture related industries drive
the state's economy, as well as recently emerging industries such as wind
energy and data centers. These forces which drive Iowa's economy are all
competing for the valuable land in which it sits. Fortunately, wind farms
are able to coexist with agricultural land, the benefit being the flat land
which the wind is harvested and utilizing only a small footprint for it's
monumental vertical presence. The other agencies; suburban developers
and corporations such as Google and Microsoft view Iowa's agricultural
lands as relatively cheap, consuming it at an exponential rate. The reasons
for expanding the metropolis are all legitimate. Greater Des Moines is also
in the business of capitalizing on the interests of developers, collecting
taxes for each new acre utilized. The municipalities benefitting have every
reason to appreciate the growth in the short term, especially since it is
difficult to attract such profitable corporate interest. Minimal initial investments, such as new roads, utitlies, and tax abatements make the return on
investment seem financially lucrative.
This investigation, however, questions the long term investment for which
the cities are making; infrastructural, economical, social, and architectural.
The pressures under which cities operate to perpetuate sustainable growth,
both residential and commercial are immense. This project, alternatively
offers a comprehensive solution to substitute dense urban condensers in
Urbanized areas: 1980
substition for sprawl without sacrificing any elements on the city's agenda.
The thorough analysis of Iowa's historical and existing condition has driven a critical mixed-use intervention within an otherwise low density typical suburban condition. The intervention stitches itself into the site, West
Des Moine's Civic Center, which is currently surrounded by low-density
Urbanized areas: 1995
residential neighborhoods. The Civic Center squanders a square mile for a
school, city hall, a football field, two churches, and a park. Although this
project belongs to the Civic Center, Greater Des Moines exploding population calls for the design of a system in order to catalyze growth within
any ring of the sprawling suburban condition in hopes of saving the state's
otherwise valuable and dissolving assets; the agricultural land.
Urbanized areas: 2008
................_ ............
SUBURBAN CATALYSTS
.
............
Among the few catalysts for development in suburban Des Moines, shopping malls and shopping centers disguised as faux-town centers have been
the most evident since 1959. Single Use Zoning, the National Housing
Act of 1934, and the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 have amplified the
expeditious growth around these ephemeral landmarks. However, the preferred method; Form-based Zoning has been recently developed to diverge
from the out-dated Single Use or Euclidean Zoning codes.
Enormous parcels of land tend to develop in a very short period of time in
Suburban Des Moines, oftentimes around Shopping Malls. For example,
the first mall to be built in Des Moines was the Merle Hay Mall, opened
in 19591 . The city began to expand around the exciting new amenities of
shops, restaurants, and conveniences built around this new anchor. Large
parcels of land were quickly devoted to housing communities of people
that wanted to live outside the deteriorating quality of building stock that
surrounded the city center. The suburbs offered new roads, new shops, and
new houses that possessed shiny appliances and carpet. During that time,
1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MerleHayMall
View of new West Des Moines
suburban development.
Image: Courtesy of Bing Maps
V
Top: View of the Merle Hay
Mall in Des Moines, Iowa.
-
Image courtesy of Bing.
Middle: View of Valley West
Mall in West Des Moines, Iowa.
Image courtesy of Bing.
Bottom: View of Jordan Creek
Town Center in West Des
Moines, Iowa.
Image courtesy of Bing.
car companies were expanding, and lined the main arterial streets with
dealerships, spreading the built footprint so far back from the road that the
street could no longer be distinguished. Sidewalks were placed, but became a mere formality because they were no longer necessary. The occasional bus stop became sparse with occupants and mass transit in Iowa lost
funding to the pervasive building of highways. However, what seemed like
a bustling and successful new neighborhood was about to meet its demise.
In 1976, the new Valley West Mall 2 announced it's opening date. Soon
thereafter, this mall-centric neighborhood phenomenon repeated itself in a
different part of the city; all of the excitement, development, attention, and
the city's financial resources were refocused on the neighborhood around
the new Valley West Mall. Once again, in 2004, General Growth Properties opened the doors of a development called Jordan Creek Town Center3 ,
which they refer to as a "retail resort" . This was a more holistic model
for a mall; a town center, which combined elements of enclosed malls and
outdoor and non-retail components. Ironically, this happened at arguably
2
Valley West Mall is an enclosed regional shopping center in West
Des Moines, IA; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ValleyWest Mall
3
Jordan Creek Mall is a super-regional shopping mall and lifestyle
center in the American city of West Des Moines, IA; http://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/JordanCreekTownCenter
...
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.
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the biggest housing market boom in the history of Greater Des Moines,
and other developers took advantage of the new infrastructure which surrounded the mall; constructing single use developments that expanded
vastly into the fields just west of the metropolis.
This model of growth is a symptom of Single Use Zoning, also known to
planners as Euclidean Zoning. Euclidean Zoning is a product of a Supreme
Court ruling in 1926 in favor of Euclid, Ohio. The Village of Euclid, Ohio
succeeded in a United States Supreme Court case against Ambler Real Estate Co. over a zoning dispute to prevent Industrial Cleveland from growing into the village of Euclid. Eventually, single use zoning was born,
which "is a practice of urban planning where everyday uses are separated
from each other and where land uses of the same type are separated from
each other and where land uses of the same type are grouped together"4 .
4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-use-zoning
Below: Illustrating single-use
zoning in the western suburbs
of Metropolitan Des Moines.
The white represents undeveloped open areas which
can be inserted with multi-use
programs to stitch the single
use areas together.
1:1 -
I
....
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...............
Shops are concentrated in one area, housing in another area, industry in
another. Critics argue that putting everyday uses out of walking distance
of each other leads to an increase in traffic since people have to get in their
cars and drive to meet their needs throughout the day. Due to this critical turn of events, West Des Moines began to grow in accordance with
the aforementioned 'Euclidean Zoning codes'. Further exacerbating and
propagating this problem was the creation of the Federal Housing Administration and the Federal Highway Act. The Federal Housing Administration promoted home building and home buying by stabilizing the mortgage market by providing an adequate home financing system through
insurance of mortgage loans5 , while the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956
which subsidized 25 billion dollars for 41,000 miles of highway system.
Unfortunately, the Highway Act heavily subsidized the proliferation of
suburban highways, making commutes between the suburbs and urban
centers much quicker. In the case of Des Moines, a recently completed
5
United States Interstate
network & urbanized areas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NationalHousingAct-of_1934
interstate highways
urbanized areas 1980
urbanized areas 2000
-
urbani 7P areas
010
.......
.........
.....................
13.83 mile, $429 Million stretch of interstate expansion now connects the
suburb of West Des Moines with downtown Des Moines6 .
A relatively new, non-traditional, and preferred method of zoning is Formbased Zoning "which is a means of regulating development to achieve
a specific urban form" 7 . This was developed in response to the modem
challenges of suburban and exurban sprawl and a tool to address the
deficiencies of Single-use Zoning and provide the local governments the
regulatory means to achieve development objectives with greater certainty.
Form based zoning provides an opportunity to deviate from the unsustainable patterns of development, and to catalyze a new city form for suburban
growth. Over the past thirty years, many architects and urban designers
have attempted to reconcile suburban sprawl with different strategies, but
these models have failed to gain a stronghold on the majority of the current development. In conclusion, through the understanding of ineffective
policy, unsuccessful form, and current catalysts for expanding suburbs, a
6
7
http://www.iowadot.gov/i-235/factoids.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form-basedcode
.............
Image of Interstate 235
which connects Downtown
Des Moines to the Western
Suburbs. The project was
completed in 2008 and cost
the city & state over $400M
DES MOINES' SUBURBAN CONDITION
..........
The realization of the suburbs; the once imaginary expression of individualism, liberation from the cramped city, and withdrawal from strangers
and neighbors to remain undisturbed has caused one of the most disastrous social ripple effects. The dramatic effects can be seen most apparently through increasing isolation in the current suburban social situation,
specifically in automobile travel. "Nine out of ten people travel to work
by car, and of those, eighty-eight percent drive alone. Commuting makes
people unhappy, or so many studies have shown. 'I was shocked to find
how robust a predictor of social isolation commuting is', says Robert Putnam, a Harvard political scientist says, 'Every ten minutes of commuting
results in ten percent fewer social connections. Commuting is connected
with social isolation, which causes unhappiness."'
"On the train or bus, one can experience an illusion of fellowship, even
if you disdain your fellow-passengers or are revolted by them. Perhaps
there's succor in inadvertent eye contact, the presence of a pretty woman,
1
"Annals of Transport: There and Back Again : The New Yorker."
Web. 23 Nov. 2010.
shared disgruntlement (over a delay or a spilled Pepsi), or the shuffle
through the doors, which requires, on a subconscious level, an array of
social compromises and collaborations." With the advent of separated
functions and social isolation, the automobile amplified the fall of public
domain.
In "The Fall of Public Man", Richard Sennett defines "public" as to mean
"a life passed outside the life of family and close friends; in the public
region diverse, complex social groups were to be brought into ineluctable
contact. The focus of this public life was the capital city."2
The deterioration of public life happened in the 19th century when industrialization led to the homogenization of public expression. It was a unique
shift from the bourgeoisie enjoying all amenities of public life to a form
of 'sociability independent of direct royal control, places where strangers
might regularly meet up'. Sennett goes on to explain this era associated
with a diverse urban public, or "cosmopolitan", coined in 1738, where
man begins to feel comfortable in situations that have no links to him. It
was an era in which enormous parks were built and coffeehouses, theaters,
and other forms of urban amenities opened up from the elite to many parts
of society.
It requires the full understanding of vibrant public life since the intention
is to recreate dynamic publicness in the suburbs of the 21st century. The
aforementioned cosmopolitan public life has a direct relationship with the
form of the city we are speaking of. A dense urban condition, as seen on
the right in the case of Downtown Des Moines, allows the "cosmopolitan"
interaction and tension between social and cultural class structures.
In contrast, we can now understand the deteriorated social situation that
exists in suburban America, specifically in Des Moines' suburbs. The
sprawl of the city demands the absoluteness of automobile use and discourages walking and bicycling. The separation of programs by land use
further exacerbates this problem by stretching out the landscape between
the buildings and requiring enormous investments into infrastructure
2
Sennett, Richard. The Fall of Public Man. W. W. Norton & Company, 1992. Print.
....
......
..........
RETAIL PARK, WEST DES MOINES
MULTI-FAMILY HOUSING, WEST DES MOINES
DENSITY 20% (FAR 0.2)
DENSITY 14% (FAR 0.14)
OFFICE PARK, WEST DES MOINES
OFFICE PARK, WEST DES MOINES
DENSITY 12% (FAR 0.12)
DENSITY 20% (FAR 0.2)
SUBURBAN HOUSING, WEST DES MOINES
DOWNTOWN, DES MOINES
DENSITY 19% (FAR 0.19)
DENSITY 240% (FAR 2.4)
and parking for each different use, which reduces tension and chance for
multi-cultural exchange. In the suburb's relationship to public life, this
problem is two-fold; it promotes individuality and homogeneous neighborhoods, and reduces public empathy. In contradiction, it creates uniformity
and loss of identity.
"In the mass movement into suburban areas a new kind of community
was produced, which caricatured both the historic city and the archetypical suburban refuge; a multitude of uniform, unidentifiable houses, lined
up inflexibly, at uniform distances, on uniform roads, in a treeless communal waste, inhabited by people of the same class, the same income, the
same age group, witnessing the same television performances, eating the
same tasteless pre-fabricated foods, from the same freezers, conforming in
every outward and inward respect to a common mold, manufactured in the
central metropolis. Thus, the ultimate effect of the suburban escape in our
time is, ironically, a low-grade uniform environment from which escape is
impossible..." 3
This loss of identity and loss of social consciousness that Mumford describes manifests itself in the suburban built environment; an undistinguished and apologetic sea of buildings, insulating themselves from the
public with expansive parking lots and banal green space, linked by a
disorganized network of asphalt roadways. The lack of social interaction
between classes further segregates them and the gap widens; an interesting
phenomenon, which is a direct result of city form.
Interestingly, this circumstance is evident by examining the desirability
of home ownership in certain parts of the metropolis, as seen on the right.
In the current situation, the dynamic and dense city center sees a 150%
increase in median home value in just ten years4. Meanwhile, the lowdensity suburbs of West Des Moines see very little increase in home value
(oftentimes around 4%), which has a direct relationship with the density
of people per square mile. The comparison of Greater Des Moines to other
Mumford, Lewis. The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transforma3
tions, and Its Prospects. Later Printing. Mariner Books, 1968. Print.
All density and median home value data courtesy of US Census
4
2010
....
. ... .......
.........
CURRENT: this map documents the relationship that
density has to change in
median home value over the
past 10 years
EXPECTED: this map alludes to what may happen if
sprawl were continue at its
current density, effectively
flat-lining the change in
home value within the ubiquitous sea of tract homes
PROPOSED: this is a possible outcome if the suburbs were to create dense
centers or pockets within
the existing low-density,
single use zones
.......
..............
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West Des Moines,
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Berlin Germany
Los Angees. California
(5 bor-oughs)
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2010
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cities of various densities suggests that promoting density is certainly
rasonable, and in addition could change the entire home value structure
within the suburbs of West Des Moines. The dense insertions are an opportunity to simultaneously affect existing home owners and augment the
social, economic, and infrastructural organization of the entire metropolis.
The Greater Des Moines population is expected to keep inflating throughout at least the next 30 years. For over 150 years, Des Moines has developed to a surface area of just over 200 square miles. If the metropolis continues to grow at 750 people per square mile'
,
the metropolis would more
than double the surface area of the city within 30 years, which would be
equivalent to 9 Manhattan islands. The shear investment into construction
and maintenance of infrastructure would cripple the city's tax resources, as
well as engulf adjacent agricultural lands.
5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WestDesMoinesIowa
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Iowa is quickly and carelessly consuming their most precious non-renewable resource; its virgin agricultural land. While not all agricultural land
is of equal value, Iowa's farmland is increasing exponentially in price,
specifically in the last ten years. Additionally, Iowa has been referred to as
the the "food capital of the world"'. For example, it has recently recorded
producing 19% of the United States corn, which produces 39% of the
world's corn. Recently, the New York Times published an article regarding the alarming farmland prices in Iowa, noting, "In parts of Iowa, prices
for good farmland rose as much as 23 percent last year, according to the
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago." 2 Unfortunately, in just the past ten
years, Iowa has lost 5% of the farmland. Comparatively, the previous 5%
loss extended over a 50 year period, between 1950 and 2000. Given this
information, and the global trend of ever-increasing population, it is clear
that Iowa's virgin farmland is a commodity worth preserving in its current
condition.
In addition to the booming agricultural industry, Iowa is seeing an influx
1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa
2
"In Price of Farmland, Echoes of Another Boom. New York
Times" Web. 10 May 2011
Above: Wind farm coexisting
with agricultural land in Story
County, Iowa. Image courtesy
of: Flickr user "brooklyn"
(Accessed on May 10, 2011).
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of wind energy investment due to its relatively flat land and desire to increase its use of renewables as an overall percentage of energy use.
Although Texas leads the United States in overall wind energy production,
Iowa has installed over one third of the capacity of Texas and leads the
nation in 'wind energy as percentage of state energy use'. This emergence
and abundance of renewable energy has gained attention from corporations on the coasts. For example, Google recently signed a twenty year
contract to buy 114 MegaWatts from NextEra Energy Resources in Iowa3 ,
which is just one of its many approaches it is taking to become a carbon
neutral company. Interestingly enough, Google also recently constructed
a $600 million data center near Council Bluffs, IA4 . This is just the first of
a movement of data centers to the region. In 2008, Iowa houses two of the
top five locations' for data centers in the entire country, according to the
3
"Google Energy Signs 20 Year, 114 MW Wind Power Contract.
TreeHugger." Web 10 May 2011
4
"Google: 38 Generators at Iowa Data Center. Data Center Knowledge." Web 10 May 2011.
5
"The Best and Worst Cities for Data Centers. Information Week."
Web 10 May 2011.
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Illustrations by author
Boyd Co., who compared data center locations based on annual operating costs. The most recent of developments is a data center park outside
of West Des Moines, which is where Microsoft is building a new facility6 .
The facility is the first of many within a data center park being created outside of the metropolis of Des Moines. The infrastructure for the data center
park is being funded by the muncipality of West Des Moines, funded with
the intention of other incoming corporations adding to Microsoft's initial
investment. The only energy conserving techniques involved in the new
park will be its connection to Iowa's renewable energy, specifically the
wind energy.
The energy consumptive nature of servers requires inventive ideas on the
part of engineers and architects globally to minimize the monumental
costs that corporations are incurring each year from data centers. The first
priority is to site the data center within a region or near a city that produces or has an abundance of energy available to offer. Other strategies, such
as naturally ventilated cooling, chilled water cooling from nearby lakes,
6
"West Des Moines Site for new Microsoft Data Center. Business
Record." Web. 10 May 2011.
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LOCATION
London,England;
docklands
160,000
Soft
AREA
12MWN
ENERGY
USE
CLAIM
TO
FAME
ENERGY
SOURCE
GIVES
9 MWN
TOLOCAL
COMMUNITY!
hydro-electric
U_
0%
HEATS 500 HOMES
and even LEED certified projects are recently being constructed around
the world. Most of these projects which aspire to stringent energy efficiency standards, however, are mostly in Europe where the costs to acquire
energy are greater, as well as stricter enforcement of energy use. For example, the above chart lays out a taxonomy of data centers, each of which
pride itself on either environmentally friendly standards or high techonology. The two most notable projects which have caught attention were
the Academica data center in Helsinki, Finland and the Telehouse West
London Docklands data center in London, England. Each of these projects
uses innovative solutions to reduce the amount of energy they consume.
Initially, they both utilize nearby bodies of water for cooling the data
center, but most extraordinarily extract the heat produced by the servers
to power the surrounding neighborhoods. Because district heating already
exists in Helsinki, implementing such a method took no infrastructural
investment. "Together with Helsingin Energia, an energy company owned
by the city of Helsinki, they have designed a system to use the chilly
waters of the Baltic sea to cool the servers. The heat is transferred by a
separate pipe system of desalinated water and then sent through the city's
vast underground tunnel network to the district heating system, for which
PRODUCES 9 MW ENERGY
.................
. .................
....
the tunnels were originally built."7 Academica has already been contracted
to build another data center as part of the network to heat homes in Helsinki, but this one will be ten times larger, which is more similar size to
the project just assembled in the London Docklands area. The Telehouse
West London Docklands data center uses its waste heat to produce 9 MW
of electricity for the surrounding neighborhood'.
These two projects exemplify intelligent synthesis of light industrial use
with existing urban conditions. The other projects shown, while exemplary
7
"Helsinki Data Centre to Heat Homes. The Guardian UK." Web.
10 May 2011
8
"Telehouse to Heat Homes at Docklands. Data Center Knowledge." Web. 10 May 2011.
6=100
12 - 1 MW Wind Turbines
100,000 ft data center
12 - 1 MW Wind Turbines
3600 HOMES
TYPICAL SCENARIO
DATA CENTER WASTE HEAT REUSE SCENARIO
7 - 1 MW Wind Turbines
5 MW
12 - 1 MW Wind Turbines
100,000 ft data center
waste heat
*
~100
coaaaaaaaaaa
transferred
1500 HOMES!!
2100 HOMES
............................................
in their strategies to both utilize green
_ . .-.11- - , - - - ._-- ::::::
........
......
200
175
energy as well as use energy conserving
150
power & cooling
a: 0 125
techniques to reduce their carbon footprint,
75
still emit vast amounts of heat into the envi-
mgmt & admin
2
25
ronment which could otherwise be harvested
new servers
0
and reused.
150
On average, each 100,000 square foot data
2.0%
of world
125
S100
center consumes about 12 MegaWatts of
z
75
0.5%
o 50
energy, which is the equivalent of what 3600
of wod
25
homes in Iowa consumes. As the diagram
illustrates below, if waste heat was har-
500
non-hydro renewables
vested and reused as a system in the new
hydroelectric
nuclear
data center park being constructed in Greater
Des Moines, the savings in energy would
be immense. These calculations are based
gas
250
upon the reuse strategies implemented in
the aforementioned case studies. Unfor-W
tunately, due to single use zoning, which
is addressed in the previous chapter, this
oil
I
0
coal
1980
strategy is not achievable with the current mode of development within the
West Des Moines suburban condition. However, after investigating global
data center ingenuity in regards to energy use, as well as the value of Iowa
farmland, priority should be the integration of data centers within the lowdensity suburban fabric.
The graphs on the right emphasize the severity of data center energy
consumption, and with the exponential growth in internet innovation and
proliferation, there is no clear sign of a plateau of energy use in the near
future. As a matter of fact, GreenPeace has just published a paper regarding this very issue titled, "Dirty Data Report"', which brings to light the
enormous consumption of energy and lack of transparency in which the
corporations are exhibiting. The publication provides recommendations
for renewable energy sources, and effectively distributes letter grades to
9
"How Dirty is your Data?" Greenpeace. Published April 2011.
2000
2010
m:_
11
AGGREGATING SUBURBIA: THE PROJECT
The skeleton of Des Moines downtown district is slowly being refueled
and refilled by an attempt to recreate a romantic city that we remember
from the early 20th century. A romantic city that once had men in suits,
women in dresses, streetcars, public spaces, strong monumental public
buildings as a result of the "City Beautiful" movement, and a thick fabric
of brick and stone buildings. The city was alive. As the automobile and
suburbs gained steam, the city couldn't maintain its growth and became
a victim to the rampant suburban and exurban development. As most of
America, the inescapable exodus from the city to the rapidly developing
and alluring utopia known as the suburbs was in full effect. The freedom
from public transportation and pervasiveness of fast automobiles liberated
city planners and developers to alienate all traditional principles of city
form and segregate the different programs of the city. Living in the beautiful green landscape of the suburbs and commuting to the city for work
was the civilized and respected thing to do. The seemingly endless fields
around Des Moines were rich with opportunity, irresistibly cheap, and a
safe haven for wealthy families. As the radius of suburbs expanded, so
did the scale of developments. It soon became a disjointed agglomeration
of autonomous forms that were separated by wide roads and fields. The
development expanded based on the availability and price of cheap land
and not by any comprehensive plan, laying the groundwork for chaos. This
now results in a patchwork of unorganized fragments with no consideration of hierarchy or programs, scales, or social order.
These large-scale autonomous developments oftentimes prided
themselves on uniformity, and not diversity, so the resulting social fabric
became more segregated than ever before. Size of property, scale of house,
and cost of car declared the value of one's social status, not the proximity
to any other part of the city, because proximity was no longer critical. The
car eliminated any concern about travel times, so the diluted abstract of a
city that is left of Greater Des Moines is clearly defined by its enormous
streets and occasional shopping malls, sprinkled in between with unoriginal housing developments.
COURTYARD HOUSING BLOCKS
140' x 240'
MIXED-USE CONTAINERS &
CULTURAL MONUMENTS
HEATED PLATFORM
CENTRAL SPINE /
DISTRICT WASTE HEAT
INFRASTRUCTURE
DATA CENTERS!
PARKING
EXISTING CONDITION
With the notable growth that Greater Des Moines will experience in the
next 30 years, bold urban and architectural interventions will be the only
attempt at saving this rapidly expanding metropolis. Unfortunately, Iowans
are currently unaware that each new urbanized acre is laying a path to an
unsustainable future; significantly less valuable farmland to cultivate, a
permanent commitment to automobile transportation, social segregation,
and lack of public identity.
This thesis attempts to refocus the current mode of development to avoid
the ubiquitous continuation of sprawl, and instead insert new public centers at the intersection of multiple low-density neighborhoods. With this
proposition, each new adjacent neighborhood finally has hope of public
transportation access, collective identity, and every day shopping and
working within walking distance. Since the development will happen at
a scale that is unprecedented regardless, this project addresses the given
program and scale of development, but reinterprets the fashion in which
they are assembled. As we've seen in the case of shopping malls, corporate office buildings, and large highways, tax dollars are being distributed
..
.
....
......
...
.......
...
.........
.................
::::r
............
.........................................
. ..
...
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.........
to fuel economic growth. It should be noted that
the current strategies are being rewarded, as
Des Moines was recently named Forbes Magazine #1 place for business and careers in 20101.
Unfortunately, the same survey simultaneously
listed Des Moines as #108 for culture. The
affirmation of economic growth gives the city
every reason to continue their current trends, but
unfortunately to ignore issues of cultural erosion. The most obvious solution would be to distribute public monies for synchronous solutions.
For example, data center growth is inevitable in
Iowa since it has been recently named #1 placement for data center placement. (footnote) Large
corporations, such as Google and Microsoft
are assembling enormous buildings to process
1
"Best Cities for Business and Careers.
Forbes Magazine." Web. 10 May 2011.
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...............
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the world's digital information and to consume Iowa's relatively cheap
land and abundant renewable energy resources. This project promotes,
simultaneously, the expeditious construction of data centers, as well as recentralized public platform, and an office & residential development. With
the savings the city may anticipate from infrastructural growth and maintenance, the advent of public space in the suburbs will be possible. This solution promotes a polycentric metropolis, in which the entire two hundred
and nine thousand inhabitants expected to move to Greater Des Moines in
the next 30 years could be absorbed by the new sub-centers, both supporting and creating a relationship with the historic city center.
Within the platform, there are a series of objects, operations, and events.
Most notably, the platform which sits atop the massive data center will act
as a heated sidewalk in the winter, promoting the further connection of
adjacent neighborhoods. Similarly, the waste heat also heats a public bath,
acting simultaneously as a leisure activity and social catalyst in the winter.
The dense environment, particularly the courtyard housing typologies, will
maintain the heat and create a unique heated outdoor space in the winter.
The project's strong figure in the landscape allows it to be autonomous and
.
......
IT
lprotective & interactive facade
Ivauts w occulus
d at a
1cVrior
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bay
yet catalyze growth around it in the aforementioned undeveloped areas.
The project aspires to effectively augment the suburban landscape by
capitalizing on the trend of enormous data center expansion, and simultaneously, subvert the trend of suburban sprawl. The mile-long data center is
used as a "microclimate platform" for cultural activities and space for the
public collective, providing suburbs with a public identity and heralding a
new age of industrialization.
I
Type 1a
FAR: 2.2
COURTYARD &
RETAIL
Type 2a
FAR: 2.6
OPEN COURTYARD &
RESIDENTIAL
Type 1b
FAR: 3.1
ROOFTOP COURTYARD
& RESIDENTIAL
Type 2b
FAR: 2.5
ROOFTOP &
RETAIL
Type 3a
FAR: 1.9
COURTYARD &
RETAIL
Type 4a
FAR: 3.4
PRIVATE COURTYARD &
RESIDENTIAL
Type 3b
FAR: 2.9
ROOFTOP COURTYARD
RETAIL & RESIDENTIAL
Type4b
FAR: 3.6
OPEN COURTYARD &
RESIDENTIAL
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--- Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography. University Of Chicago
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