On April 27, 2025 Pratt School of Architecture faculty Xenia Adjoubei Kwan organized and moderated the fifth panel discussion in the AI+A Salon Series at the Center for Architecture to tackle the question: What role do architects play in the design and realization of data centers? And what could their impact be, if they were to have greater agency in this process?
Data centers now account for 42% of all nonresidential construction growth in the US and this is the largest building programme of our era. We are living through a critical moment of opportunity to shape decision-making and aesthetics of data centers and computational infrastructure in general, and architects must take the lead.
The panel discussion included Dr. Marina Otero Verzier (Harvard GSD), Iain Macdonald (HKS LINE), and Nicolas Rader (Flexnode), and moved through the full arc of the argument: from what makes a data center physically possible, to the environmental externalities, such as the $25 billion in unaccounted damages to the US economy in 2025 through environmental and community cost. The panel covered hyperscalers and edge typologies, stealth facilities and urban high-rise data centers, and explored how zoning and building codes could be revised. We touched upon some of the most alternative and innovative approaches – such as colocating data and compost, or whether edge computing can be a driver for urban regeneration.
This event formed part of the AI+A Salon Series and is organized by the AIANY Future of Practice Committee in collaboration with Xinru Liu.
