‘Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.’ – Warren Buffet
27 Mar 2025Shortly before midnight on Thursday 20th March a fire at the North Hyde electrical substation in Hayes, west London, knocked out power to 63,000 homes and Heathrow Airport; also affected by the fire were a significant proportion of London’s data centres.
How to Achieve Rapid Deployment Data Centres in 2025
12 Mar 2025Rapid Deployment data Centres are part of the digital revolution providing fast, scalable and flexible solutions for data storage. As the demand for data storage continues to surge, propelled by cloud computing and AI, clear communication, well-defined programmes and objectives are essential to keep projects on track during the design and delivery stages.
Beyond the Basics: Accelerating Data Centre Decarbonisation
5 Nov 2024Decarbonising data centres continues to be a pressing challenge due to their energy-intensive nature. With AI technology evolving rapidly, enabling faster data processing, the environmental impact of data centres is set to rise.
Harnessing Waste Heat Sustainably
19 Aug 2024Data centres enable everything we do online, from powering the Internet to making digital communication and connection possible. But as technology develops, society has become hungrier for access to data, resulting in data centres craving more power.
Embracing New Opportunities: Data Centres as NSIPs
8 Jul 2024As dedicated data centre architects, we at studioNWA are excited about the recent announcement from the Labour Party regarding plans to reclassify data centres as Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs). The reclassification under NSIPs would allow data centres to gain direct ministerial approval.
Data Centres for Communities
3 Jul 2024In a world where data is as a powerful wealth, how do we ensure that the buildings hosting it are benefitting communities? The influence data centres have on communities at global, regional and local scales is significant and evolving.
Aesthetics – Building in context
20 May 2024What is euphemistically known as ‘the cloud’ is in reality remote storage and processing of data in physical locations. These locations are data centres, and they form an intrinsic of part of the modern world and how it works. The design of data centres, like most storage buildings throughout history, is driven primarily by the technical requirements of what takes place inside them rather than by a consideration of their external expression or context. There can be a visual appeal to the honest expression of a building’s function but in the case of data centres that tends towards the boxy.
‘Topping out’ ceremony for the shell build of a cutting-edge data centre in Dagenham
28 Apr 2024Darren Lansdall and Jonathon Stockdale had the privilege of attending the ‘topping out’ ceremony for the shell build of a cutting-edge data centre in Dagenham.
World Earth Day
22 Apr 2024Today is World Earth Day. In light of this occasion, we want to flag one of the biggest challenges for data centres at the moment - e-waste of IT equipment.
Future Build 2024
19 Mar 2024Recently, studioNWA attended Future Build 2024. An event all about building a better future for the built environment, providing inspiring ideas, innovative solutions and knowledge sharing to drive sustainable construction to help reach the goal of net zero.