Architects Design a 65-Story Data Center (computerworld.com)

Reader dcblogs writes: Two Italian architects have designed a data center that challenges how the structures are built. Instead of constructing a flat, sprawling complex, they are proposing a 65-story data center. From a visual perspective, the circular, futuristic-looking 'Data Tower,' as Marco Merletti and Valeria Mercuri call it, almost seems like something out of Star Trek. But it incorporates sustainable technology for efficiently cooling hundreds of thousands of servers while increasing reliance on automation. The building has a modular, cylindrical design that uses a series of pods to house servers, which are available for service in much the same way automated parking garage move cars. The data tower, as with a radiator, is designed to have the maximum contact surface with the outside. The pods are hooked on to the circular structure of the tower to form a series of vertical blades.

Comments

I can see it now.

[nimbius]

A team of elite system administrators --transcended of devops and cloud -- inhabit the 65 story monolith known only as "the shard." in this cloistered structure they work tirelessly, endlessly, pounding away on their Model M keyboards and furiously working to maintain the harmonious balance of man and machine. Clothed in tattered sackcloth, a single manager ascends the structure in search of the one. She arrives, breathless and pensive with anticipation as she approaches a lone icarian figure draped in golden silks atop a mighty Aeron chair. Her steps echoing cavernoisly against the server room floor until stepping unthinkably on a lone malted milk ball. Aware, the admin directs her heavenly gaze downward upon the lowly thought leader who stands frozen, crucified in awe.
"yes?" speaks the godlike sysop..
"My laptop is frozen....i cant...." replies the manager, and as she struggles to form her next few words the admin places a single hand upon her tear soaked cheek and in a soothing voice speaks
"Have you tried turning it off....and then on...again?"
Upon this revelation the manager becomes enlightened and overwhelmed with this knowledge ascends into the afterlife, purified in the wisdom of the admin.

or more likely the whole thing smells like old cheese, the lights are perpetually shut off, pizza delivery staff die from exposure, and theres a copy of userfriendly propping up a two wheeled crash cart full of old mcdonalds bags and taco bell wrappers.

Re:It should be shaped more like a cooling tower.

[Overzeetop]

When architects say "designed like a radiator" what they really mean is that they were artistically inspired by some sort of cooling device enclosure they took a fancy to. They have almost zero grasp of all but the most basic physics and have never, ever set foot in a thermodynamics class or done any substantial heat transfer coursework. Heck, most would be lucky to read a psychrometric chart.