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Project info

Studio PULL at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem (9th semester - erasmus)

Consultant: Natanel Elfassy & Raphael de la Fontaine

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Task

Analyze a chosen urban problem in Jaffa area of Tel-Aviv. Develop a project based on found information.

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Description

The project tries to merge a data center fused with cooling tower concept as an answer to a phenomenon called urban heat island effect. Aim was to minimize building heat gain and urban heat island effect respectively.

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There are various parameters that influence the temperature of the city, such as climate (temperature, sunlight, wind, precipitation), urban structure (geometry, street direction, height, green space, traffic) and urban surface (reflection, material, color). Changing the whole urban fabric from ground-up is most of the time impossible, therefore trying to find a way to introduce few structures within a city that can have an impact was the idea.

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By using a cooling tower concept data center, surrounding air is being circulated. Cooler air from outside is being sucked in to the tower where it cools down hot water used to cool down data servers and in exchange the air is warmed up and rises through the chimney. This helps to move the trapped heat from the streets and by constant movement you do not let the heat accumulate over time. When additional textile mesh netting would be placed on top, the water loss per cycle is less than 1%. When multiple towers are introduced within a city (500 m distance from each other) the average temperature could change from 1-4 degrees Celsius in the areas close to the towers.

Choosing a data center as a function which requires substantial cooling is a way to utilize gained knowledge through the research about heat gain and using it where it is needed the most. Considerable reduction of heat gain can be achieved by simply adjusting the surface angles towards the sun direction. Lower the angle between the sun and the surface normal vector yields lower energy absorbed by the building from the sun (insolation). By tilting the facade on each floor by 10 degrees we can reduce the heat gained up to 10% in comparison to perpendicular walls.

Data centers are also rapidly growing in demand and the need for more servers is not going to stop any time soon. By having an ability to squeeze in a data center with small area footprint throughout the city there is also a benefit of more even server distribution and lower latency for the users.

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