Snøhetta designs The Spark – The Body and the Brain of Future Cities
On behalf of real estate developer MIRIS and in collaboration Skanska, Asplan Viak and Nokia, Snøhetta has designed The Spark, a sustainable data center concept that fuels connected Power Cities with energy from its excess heat. The collaboration strives to transform this high energy-consuming typology into an energy-producing resource for communities to generate their own power. The Spark can be adapted to a wide range of contexts, and can be scaled in size and located anywhere in the world.
By 2020 the world’s need for digital data storage could amount to the nearly unfathomable number of 44 zettabytes (21 zeroes). While many perceive data as stored in “the cloud”, the reality of digital storage requires mostly remote, gigantic, energy consuming facilities connected to our towns and cities through millions of kilometers of fiber optic cable.
«The heat generated by data centers represents a huge untapped potential in terms of energy capture that we wanted to explore further. By efficiently and sustainably exploiting excess energy that would otherwise go to waste, we can use technology to generously support health, recreation and the environment», says Founding Partner at Snøhetta, Kjetil Trædal Thorsen.
The Spark converts its host community into an energy-producing Power City – energy positive cities that produce more energy than they consume over a lifetime.The first pilot study in Lyseparken in Os, Norway, will test The Spark’s feasibility on a real site. If the pilot is successful, Lyseparken may become an energy positive town.
A Cyclical Energy Concept: Powering our Cities
The new sustainable data centers will function dually as «the body and brain» of the Power City. While the brain is represented by the storage of data itself and its possibilities of controlling a data-driven smart city, the body is manifested through the data center’s circular energy concept.
Just like blood travelling through in the human body, the energy generated from the data center travels through buildings and infrastructure, gradually giving off more and more of its heat, before returning to the data center and efficiently cooling it down. It then repeats the cycle indefinitely, producing energy that supplies the Power City, including schools, apartments, sporting facilities or even hospitals.The facilities are placed strategically depending on their heating needs.
«We wanted to develop a building that gives back to its community. As new technologies emerge, and data centers are becoming increasingly suitable for urban areas, we see a great potential in incorporating the data center more into future cities and in our everyday lives» says Jan Gunnar Mathisen, CEO at MIRIS.
«The Spark» - A New Beginning
Data centers currently stand for 2% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to becoming an urban power source, The Spark pilot project also demonstrates that the energy consumption in data centers can be reduced by 40%.
Ambitious, net-positive energy Powerhouse standards were implemented in the design process, including using low-embodied materials such as wood, rather than steel and concrete. The data center’s structural core will also be made from local stone, allowing for aesthetic variations that adapt to the local context of the building.
The Spark will not only set a new standard for sustainable data centers, but also position data centers as anchors of smart city developments. By powering sports and recreational facilities, the project also aims to reintroduce a human touch back into our digitalized and smartphone driven lives, making the data center the very body and mind of a living and breathing city of the future.
Supporting Communication
In addition to designing the architectural concept for The Spark, Snøhetta has developed the name, the visual identity and designed and developed the project's website, www.sparkcity.no. Snøhetta has also art directed and illustrated a short and visually appealing information film supporting the launch of the project. Combined, these visual elements and communicative tools help convey this technically advanced project in a language that can be understood by all.
About Power Cities and the Powerhouse Standard
The Spark will be a case for a further development of the Powerhouse definition, a concept developed by the Powerhouse collaboration. The collaboration designs and builds so-called «plus house» buildings, energy producing buildings that, during a 60-year period, will generate more renewable energy than the total amount of energy that would be required to sustain daily operations and to build, produce materials and demolish the building.
The intention is to design energy positive cities that follow the same criteria as Powerhouse buildings. This does not entail that each building needs to be a Powerhouse, but that the city must have an overall positive energy contribution.
Powerhouse is a collaboration between Snøhetta, Entra, Skanska, the ZERO Emission Resource Organization and Asplan Viak.
About MIRIS
MIRIS is a specialist real estate developer, financing and managing residential and commercial real estate in Norway. The company’s core business is within Edge Data Centers, Positive Energy Buildings and Smart Homes. MIRIS aims to be the most innovative developer of sustainable cities and societies. MIRIS is the champion of cross-industry collaboration, building partnerships with authorities, architects, power companies and technology providers. We collaborate with partners, talents and stakeholders who share our passion for environmentally sustainable living and working. MIRIS is also the company behind the world’s first energy positive hotel concept in the arctic circle, SVART.
