Cyber Leviathan

The project examines the intersection between public space and data center. As the need for data infrastructure increases, it’s time to transform the conventional impression of dullness, inaccessibility, utilitarianization into that of fun, interaction, and multifunctionality.

Perched at the Hudson River, Pier98 , “Cyber Leviathan” is designed to be a new landmark for the public while not losing the industrial trait which is part of the regional identity. The project is a portmanteau of tropical aquarium, a data center and an office tower. The initiative is to establish an energy recycling cycle where excessive heat generated by the data center can be reused by other programs. A tropical aquarium fits this role for its natural need for heat and the compatibility with the liquid cooling mechanism in data infrastructure. In this system, the data center sits at the bottom of the building. The matrix of server racks, encapsulated in acrylic boxes, is submerged in the aquarium. The acrylic box is filled with non-conductive liquid, the heat can be transferred through the liquid and become the heating source for the aquarium.

During the maintenance, the liquid will be vacuumed and flow into the cache tank, then server racks placed on a hydraulic lifter can be lowered down to the maintenance level to be accessed. As the amendment or replacement is done, the box will be resealed and refilled, the hydraulic lifter will raise back to the aquarium level.

“Cyber Leviathan” also pursues the aesthetic of “Machinic Chimera” which perceives architectural form as parts of a larger, self-organizing, adapting, material process. Chimeras are synthetic –produced through synthesis , a combination of parts forming an entity rather than artificial– a copy from the authentic model defined by its opposition to the original. Their unique nature positions chimeras in radical opposition to an imitation or a fake. Even though the terms “synthetic” and “artificial” are casually used interchangeably, there is a difference in the precise ways they refer to “unnatural ” or “manufactured” phenomena. The composite hybridity within chimeras makes that difference evident.