BIM-driven prototype turns data centers into a kit of parts

Considering their predominantly functional and technical nature, data centers are becoming as much a product as they are a building. As a data center “product,” there are opportunities for mass customization of assemblies that can lead to higher levels of efficiencies than those that can be attained by an outmoded stick-built/one-off approach to building design.

However, as data center “buildings”—which exist within a real site with a real context and real constraints—the need exists to think of the building as a system of assemblies that can be sensitively arranged to match the unique requirements of a particular location and program.

A promise that building information modeling (BIM) holds is to create a dynamic model of components which can evolve and improve over time.

To take advantage of this promise, Digital Realty commissioned SPARCH to design and model a prototypical, modular data center shell in BIM that was responsive to a range of data center infrastructure solutions that Digital Realty had developed.

As noted by our client, Steve Kundich, AIA, Vice President, Design & Construction with Digital Realty, “BIM was essential for our PBB+ Prototype development, allowing for rapid site master planning and building design. It eliminates most of the conceptual design and design development steps and allows the team to focus on localizing the design to the site and/or customer requirements.”

Rendering depicts a two-story, four-pod prototype assembly with an attached common building

Designed for assembly, this PBB+ (Powered Base Building+) prototype blends the best of prefabrication, modular, and site-built construction. This branded prototype is designed for supply chain optimization while allowing for a range of solutions based on particular site or program requirements.

In terms of supply chain optimization of the major architectural components, this prototype campaign will provide Digital Realty the ability to negotiate a considerable cost savings through long-term, bulk purchasing agreements while allowing for reduced lead times for key components. The major architectural components of the prototype would include roofing, exterior precast panels, sunshades and storefront, entry canopies, and even prefabricated stair modules. In addition, the building’s structural elements have been selected and designed to be simplified, repeatable, and readily available, avoiding long delays for specialty steel sizes and detailing.

From our client’s perspective, these will add up to major savings on the overall project budget and schedule, which equates to a quicker time to market. “The opportunities that BIM affords for off-site fabrication allow for reduced project schedule time and cost savings,” says Kundich. “We are now prefabricating major M&E portions of the project with our suppliers.”

Exploded components diagram of a one-story data hall pod module

Of course, every site is unique, with its own particular opportunities and requirements. The PBB+ prototype is modular in nature, allowing for both single-story and two-story solutions. An office or “common” building module is coupled with a varying number of data hall pod modules, each with the associated electrical and mechanical data center infrastructure that Digital has developed. This planning flexibility allows the prototype to conform to sites of various shapes and sizes throughout our client’s markets, while being flexible enough to accommodate their customers’ unique needs.

Since the PBB+ prototype is documented with BIM, all of Digital Realty’s AE design consultants can use this content to greatly accelerate the documentation of their site-specific projects, reducing the SD and DD phases of the project to just several weeks and allowing the teams to focus on localizing the design to site specific and customer requirements. Ultimately, the CD phases of the project will be reduced as well, as more construction details are developed and refined over time and added to the prototype model.

Portions of this prototype have already been incorporated into several Digital projects currently under way. The savings in cost and time in these case studies are just now being quantified. The goal is to provide a system that can be presented in conjunction with the data center infrastructure solutions that Digital has developed, as either a turn-key solution or as the basis of design for a build-to-suit data center project. Either way, the prototype approach should provide a more rapid and predictable project schedule, both in terms of design and construction, and yield a more cost effective and predictable project budget.

Individual components of one-story and two-story pod configurations

As for next steps, we can imagine setting up and working within a BIM infrastructure where the client's extended ecosystem of consultants/suppliers can continuously and incrementally improve this prototypical model, and do it in a way where the updates become a natural by-product of any given project's workflow.

Specifically, we can envision the development of a Revit Plugin that will, in concert with Revit’s WAN-based Server technology, continuously sync, in real-time, this evolving library of components between all of Digital Realty’s AEC consultant projects.

Similar to the product design analogy referenced above, this hybrid data center “product-building” can continue to evolve with each new “release,” with all of the information contained within this ever-evolving building model, which exists within the BIM infrastructure.

This approach, and the wide network of Digital’s design and vendor partners, should allow for a continual evolution of the design, with greater opportunity for innovation over a one-firm/one-client/one building approach.

We recognize that this represents a dramatic and potentially disruptive departure from the traditional design process. We as architects are ideally suited to participate in and even lead this departure and take advantage of the new opportunities, partnerships, and relationships it promises.

The Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) is accepting entries for its 37th Annual Marketing Communications Awards (MCA) competition. The MCA program is the longest-standing, most prestigious awards program recognizing excellence in marketing communications by professional services firms in the design and building industry. The entry deadline is March 3, 2014. SMPS members and nonmembers are eligible to enter.

All images Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture/photographs by Namgoong Sun

| Jan 23, 2014

Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill-designed Federation of Korean Industries tower opens in Seoul [slideshow]

The 50-story tower features a unique, angled building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) exterior designed to maximize the amount of energy collected.

| Jan 23, 2014

Think you can recognize a metal building from the outside?

What looks like brick, stucco or wood on the outside could actually be a metal building. Metal is no longer easily detectable. It’s gotten sneakier visually. And a great example of that is the Madison Square retail center in Norman, Okla.

| Jan 23, 2014

3 fatal flaws your architecture firm has right now

After visiting over 200 architecture firms, I was aghast that so many of them were committing these costly sins of mismanagement and miscommunication, without even realizing it. If I can stop even one more firm from shooting its own foot, then this is worth it.

| Jan 22, 2014

SOM-designed University Center uses 'sky quads,' stacked staircases to promote chance encounters

The New School's vertical campus in Manhattan houses multiple functions, including labs, design studios, a library, and student residences, in a 16-story building.

Photo: Tim Evanson via Wikimedia Commons

| Jan 22, 2014

Architecture Billings Index sees first back-to-back decline since mid-2012

The AIA's Architecture Billings Index dipped for the second consecutive month in December—the first consecutive months of contraction since May and June of 2012.

Renderings courtesy Foster + Partners, Comcast Corp.

| Jan 21, 2014

Comcast to build second Philadelphia skyscraper, with Norman Foster-designed tower [slideshow]

The British architect last week unveiled his scheme for the $1.2 billion, 59-story Comcast Innovation and Technology Center, planned adjacent to the Comcast Center.

At 1,166 feet, the JW Marriott Marquis Hotel Dubai Tower 2 was the tallest build

| Jan 21, 2014

2013: The year of the super-tall skyscraper

Last year was the second-busiest ever in terms of 200-meter-plus building completions, with 73 towers, according to a report by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.

| Jan 20, 2014

BUILDINGChicago/Greening the Heartland Conference 'call for 2014 educational proposals' is now open

The conference and exposition will take place September 29-October 1, 2014, at North America’s largest LEED Gold-certified hotel, the Holiday Inn Chicago Mart Plaza. Deadline for proposals is February 28, 2014.

Currently Reading

BIM-driven prototype turns data centers into a kit of parts

Tags

| Jan 24, 2014

| Jan 23, 2014

| Jan 23, 2014

| Jan 23, 2014

| Jan 23, 2014

| Jan 22, 2014

| Jan 22, 2014

| Jan 21, 2014

| Jan 21, 2014

| Jan 20, 2014

Most Popular Content

Magazine Subscription

Get our Newsletters

Follow BD+C: