In the last two decades, most human activities have started to depend on the Internet. Despite the cyberworld’s expansion and the exponential growth of data creation and traffic every year, people prove to be still poorly conscious of their hyper-connected lifestyle’s real implications and impact. The Internet and data have always been envisioned as something intangible, a concept perfectly depicted by the romantic name given by high-tech corporations to the most popular storage and connectivity method, the “Cloud.” However, hidden behind the Clouds’ comforting idea, there are massive physical spaces consuming record amounts of energy and leaving profound traces on the environment. These buildings, appearing as concrete boxes silently built in remote geographical areas, are the data centers. Within their walls, data are collected, sent, and received uninterruptedly every second of every year, and, in parallel with data’s surge, they are expected to proliferate in number, size and importance. In addition to enabling businesses’ critical operations, their function is even more relevant considering that they contain everything about who we are, both as individuals and humankind. In fact, considering that their servers host people’s fears, dreams, most private secrets, memories, and plans, human history, and collective memory, they can be considered huge cultural containers, which makes them probably the most significant architectures of our age. The paradox is represented by the fact that, despite this undeniable bond with human beings, they exclude human beings at the same time. For reasons connected to data protection and covert operations, a wide range of strategies has been employed for hiding data centers’ presence and function to the most people, including the spread of misleading information, extensive image campaigns, and targeted use of interior design and architecture. People are not allowed inside the space, and very few are required for occasional maintenance and surveillance. As the human presence is considerably low, they are mostly populated by computers. This substantial change raises a critical issue for our field of study: for the first time in history, architecture is not made for human beings but machines. This paper has not the ambition of bringing a solution or designing the data center of the future but stimulating questions and creating a field for debate about several critical issues concerning data centers and the modern relationship between human beings and data. In order to achieve this final goal, the dissertation had to reach two fundamental objectives. The first objective was to analyze and interpret how today the interaction between data and people affects data centers’ design and aesthetics. Therefore, an extensive work of desk research and analysis was conducted to acquire adequate expertise on data centers’ subjects from a broad point of view. The second objective, made possible by the previous research and analysis phase, was to envision new future relationships between people and data and explore the spatial opportunities derived from these relations. Thus, the outcome consists of three design visions, purposely conceptual and fictional, in which the architecture spatially translates three different relationships between people and data. The projects play the role of tools in raising critical questions and opening new perspectives for debate. For the second objective and design part, the followed methodology has been that of Speculative Design. This creative approach has proved to be the most suitable for achieving the final aim for its power of opening both designer and public to new, non-conventional perspectives and because it focuses on questioning the present and rather than providing answers.
Nel corso degli ultimi due decenni, la maggior parte delle attività umane ha iniziato a dipendere da Internet. Nonostante l’espansione del mondo digitale e la crescita esponenziale della quantità e del traffico di dati ogni anno, pochi sono consapevoli delle reali implicazioni e dell’impatto di uno stile di vita iper-connesso. Internet e i dati sono sempre stati concepiti come qualcosa di intangibile, concetto perfettamente rappresentato dal nome romantico con cui le grandi società high-tech hanno deciso di pubblicizzare il più popolare strumento di archiviazione e connettività, il “Cloud”. Tuttavia, nascosti dietro la confortante idea della “nuvola”, si nascondono ingombranti spazi fisici che consumano quantità record di energia e hanno un massiccio impatto ambientale. Questi edifici, che si presentano come anonime scatole di cemento erette in aree geografiche remote, sono i data center. Essi raccolgono ed elaborano dati ininterrottamente ogni secondo dell’anno e si prevede una loro proliferazione in numero, dimensioni e importanza. Oltre a supportare le operazioni più critiche delle aziende, la loro funzione è ancora più rilevante considerando che custodiscono tutto ciò che siamo, sia come individui che come genere umano. Ospitando, infatti, paure, desideri, segreti, ricordi e informazioni private, oltre che la storia dell’essere umano e la memoria collettiva, possono essere considerati enormi contenitori culturali, il che le rende probabilmente le architetture più significative della nostra epoca. Il paradosso è rappresentato dal fatto che, nonostante abbiano questo innegabile legame con l’essere umano, allo stesso tempo lo escludono. Per ragioni legate alla protezione dei dati e delle operazioni condotte al loro interno, è stata impiegata un’ampia gamma di strategie per nascondere l’esistenza e funzione dei data center al pubblico comune. Queste strategie comprendono la diffusione di informazioni fuorvianti, una massiccia campagna di immagine e l’uso mirato di Interior Design e architettura a fini comunicativi. I data center sono spazi in cui l’accesso da parte dell’uomo non è solo negato, ma anche non necessario, ad esclusione di pochissimi addetti ai lavori. Sono, infatti, perlopiù abitati da computer. Questo cambiamento sostanziale solleva una questione critica per il nostro campo di studi: per la prima volta nella storia, l’architettura non è fatta per gli esseri umani, ma per le macchine. Questo lavoro non ambisce a trovare una soluzione o a progettare il data center del futuro. Intende piuttosto stimolare domande e creare un terreno fertile per il dibattito in merito ai data center e all’odierno rapporto tra esseri umani e dati. Per raggiungere questo fine, la tesi ha dovuto completare due obiettivi fondamentali. Il primo obiettivo è stato analizzare e interpretare come oggi l’interazione tra dati ed esseri umani influenzi il design e l’estetica dei data center. Pertanto, è stato condotto un ampio lavoro di ricerca e analisi sulle infrastrutture dei dati mantenendo un approccio trasversale e multidisciplinare. Il secondo obiettivo, reso possibile dalla precedente fase di analisi, è stato quello di immaginare nuove possibili relazioni future tra l’essere umano e i dati ed esplorare le opportunità spaziali da esse derivanti. L’outcome progettuale è costituito da tre visioni, volutamente concettuali e fittizie, in cui l’architettura traduce in termini formali tre diverse interazioni tra essere umano e dati. I progetti rivestono il ruolo di strumenti per sollevare domande e aprire nuove prospettive per il dibattito. Per la parte progettuale, la metodologia seguita è stata quella dello Speculative Design. Questo approccio creativo si è rivelato il più consono al raggiungimento dell’obiettivo finale per via del suo potere di aprire, sia al designer che al pubblico, punti di vista non convenzionali e perché si focalizza sulla messa in discussione del presente piuttosto che sulla formulazione di risposte.
Cloud machines. A spatial investigation of data centers to question humans' present and future relationship with data
Cimenti, Giulia
2019/2020
Abstract
In the last two decades, most human activities have started to depend on the Internet. Despite the cyberworld’s expansion and the exponential growth of data creation and traffic every year, people prove to be still poorly conscious of their hyper-connected lifestyle’s real implications and impact. The Internet and data have always been envisioned as something intangible, a concept perfectly depicted by the romantic name given by high-tech corporations to the most popular storage and connectivity method, the “Cloud.” However, hidden behind the Clouds’ comforting idea, there are massive physical spaces consuming record amounts of energy and leaving profound traces on the environment. These buildings, appearing as concrete boxes silently built in remote geographical areas, are the data centers. Within their walls, data are collected, sent, and received uninterruptedly every second of every year, and, in parallel with data’s surge, they are expected to proliferate in number, size and importance. In addition to enabling businesses’ critical operations, their function is even more relevant considering that they contain everything about who we are, both as individuals and humankind. In fact, considering that their servers host people’s fears, dreams, most private secrets, memories, and plans, human history, and collective memory, they can be considered huge cultural containers, which makes them probably the most significant architectures of our age. The paradox is represented by the fact that, despite this undeniable bond with human beings, they exclude human beings at the same time. For reasons connected to data protection and covert operations, a wide range of strategies has been employed for hiding data centers’ presence and function to the most people, including the spread of misleading information, extensive image campaigns, and targeted use of interior design and architecture. People are not allowed inside the space, and very few are required for occasional maintenance and surveillance. As the human presence is considerably low, they are mostly populated by computers. This substantial change raises a critical issue for our field of study: for the first time in history, architecture is not made for human beings but machines. This paper has not the ambition of bringing a solution or designing the data center of the future but stimulating questions and creating a field for debate about several critical issues concerning data centers and the modern relationship between human beings and data. In order to achieve this final goal, the dissertation had to reach two fundamental objectives. The first objective was to analyze and interpret how today the interaction between data and people affects data centers’ design and aesthetics. Therefore, an extensive work of desk research and analysis was conducted to acquire adequate expertise on data centers’ subjects from a broad point of view. The second objective, made possible by the previous research and analysis phase, was to envision new future relationships between people and data and explore the spatial opportunities derived from these relations. Thus, the outcome consists of three design visions, purposely conceptual and fictional, in which the architecture spatially translates three different relationships between people and data. The projects play the role of tools in raising critical questions and opening new perspectives for debate. For the second objective and design part, the followed methodology has been that of Speculative Design. This creative approach has proved to be the most suitable for achieving the final aim for its power of opening both designer and public to new, non-conventional perspectives and because it focuses on questioning the present and rather than providing answers.| File | Dimensione | Formato | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
2021_04_Cimenti.pdf
non accessibile
Descrizione: Book tesi
Dimensione
56.24 MB
Formato
Adobe PDF
|
56.24 MB | Adobe PDF | Visualizza/Apri |
I documenti in POLITesi sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
https://hdl.handle.net/10589/174351