ADDRESS 02: ARCHIVE:
Data Center, 375 Pearl Street
Black Box
New inhabitants are increasingly emerging in our cityscapes. Their size varies from small boxes located in sidewalks to thirty-storey buildings. They have neither signs nor windows and reveal nothing of what they hold inside. They are buildings for non-humans, highly sophisticated machine containers that act as datacenters, broadband switches, or weather stations.
They are the physical spaces where our urban data is being measured, transported and stored; literally black boxes required for our desired transparent data. These boxes not only obscure the functions and performance of their content but also their management and intensive energy needs. How do we relate with this elements in the city? What should a building for non-humans look like?
The common tendency is to “camouflage” them in attempts to increase their levels of invisibility. But could they have other means of representation? If opening the black box could be an option, which one of its characteristics should be revealed? And if transparency does not become operative, new alternatives will have to be envisioned.
Additional Information:
Citizens reactions in st. Alban
