THE PERSONAL DATA INITIATIVE Bachelor of Architecture Thesis Umut Caglar Guney Syracuse University School of Architecture Thesis Advisors: Prof. Daniele Profeta Prof. Gregory Corso Prof. Kyle James Miller
May 11, 2020
About this Document / Note for future thesis students
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The vast majority of the research and design process has been documented in this book including but not limited to site visits, influential sources, interviews, progress iterations, attempts, failures and sometimes unrelated tendencies. I think it is very
important to look at the trajectory of the work and acknowledge how the final result hasn’t been achieved as the mere embodiment of an idea but through an iterative process. To illustrate this, I included the content I produced for progress reviews and desk crits with dates of production. As I was going through thesis semester, it constantly felt like I am behind the schedule of design development and I think this progress can potentially be a useful resource for a future candidate. The final proposal is also presented in either one of the following links;
thepersonaldatainitiative.com ucguney.wixsite.com/wetheusers
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Acknowledgements
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This thesis has been made possible with the incredible support of many individuals. THANK YOU!
Everything from the first day of my education back in kindergarten until now has been primarily made possible by my loving mom, Sebnem Akarin Nothing would have been accomplished if it wasn’t for my dad’s ceaseless moral and intellectual support and guidance: A. Ilter Guney Syracuse University SOA Faculty members for their guidance and invaluable conversations: Assoc. Prof. Sinéad Mac Namara Asst. Prof. Britt Eversole Dean Michael A. Speaks For an amazing interview, the tour of Yale Center for Genome Analysis and the only tour I could get inside a data center: Asst. Prof. Kaya Bilguvar, MD Director of Yale Center for Genome Analysis at Yale University For a great interview where I got to learn a lot more about data centers and cloud structures: Prof. Lale Ersoy Dept. of Computer Engineering, Bogazici University For her great comments and ideas, my Honors Capstone Project Reader: Asst. Prof. Ingrid Erickson iSchool, Syracuse University Of course, my thesis advisors for their rigorous guidance and their ability to always follow a compliment with a critique: Asst. Teaching Prof. Daniele Profeta Assoc. Prof. Kyle J. Miller Asst. Prof. Gregory Corso For her insightful comments and suggestions: Naomi Shanguhyia Asst. Director, Renée Crown University Honors Program For funding the research and production: the SOURCE & Kate Hanson, Director
My amazing friends & family for their unmatched support, ideas, critique and contributions: Anna Korneeva Irmak Turanli Eren Aldis Tirta Pratama Teguh Andres Feng Isabella Calidonio Tanvi Marina Rao Sachio Badham Prerit Gupta Nashwah Ahmed Heber Santos Amelia Gan
Idil Guney Figen Taser Guney Mustafa Kaplan Canberk Akcal Serdar Gareayaghi Yigit Saridikmen Nur Evin Mercan Felix D. Samo
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Syracuse University School of Architecture
Table of Content
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THE PERSONAL DATA INITIATIVE
Thesis Document
SPREAD FOR THESIS PUBLICATION
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THESIS CLAIMS
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TENDENCIES
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
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CRITERIA OF EVALUATION
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PRODUCTION THESIS PREP
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PROGRESS THESIS
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FINAL CONTENT THESIS
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
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DISCIPLINARY, THEORETICAL, HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
YALE CENTER FOR GENOME ANALYSIS SUBMARINE CABLE LANDING POINTS DATA CENTERS CHICAGO MANHATTAN AMSTERDAM
TABLE OF CONTENT
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Syracuse University School of Architecture
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THE PERSONAL DATA INITIATIVE
Thesis Document
Name: Umut Caglar Guney Advisory Group: Near Future Fictions Thesis Advisors: Gregory Corso, Kyle Miller, Daniele Profeta Thesis Project Title: The Personal Data Initiative Thesis Subtitle: We the Captives of the Cloud Thesis Statement: Unlike real clouds, the digital cloud is not in the sky. It lives in the thousands of data centers dispersed around the world and its content incessantly travels thousands of miles in the form of light, through a global network of fiber-optic cables. The significant majority of data centers are located in exurban environments; however, a surprising minority of critical data centers are located in dense urban areas. Investigating the public’s engagement with network infrastructures of digital data and genetic information is a very relevant undertaking in a world where governments file multi-billion-dollar lawsuits against tech giants over privacy concerns and our daily conversations are concerned over the distribution of deadly viruses and public health information. This project aims to reveal the internet infrastructure as a physical entity with varying degrees of inaccessibility where billions of digital identities live. The internet infrastructure is portrayed as a culturally significant artifact through the lens of personal data agency that is governed by a third party. This effect is achieved through a series of carefully constructed sequences different types of users would experience as they engage with the project. Varying degrees of transparency, ground-level formal gestures and interfaces of byproducts such as exhaust vents and cooling towers build up levels of awareness for the passersby that is unprecedented in the real-world examples of the internet infrastructure. The Personal Data Initiative is an imaginary publicly governed organization for personal digital and genetic data agency which is comprised of a data center, a genome lab and necessary public programs such as the personal data council. The project sits on a large plot of land in the Rockaway Beach in Queens, NY and is mostly submerged in the ground. Proximity to the ocean brings the vulnerable nature of the infrastructure forward and underlines the risk factor associated with storing sensitive personal information on the seemingly ethereal and invulnerable digital cloud.
SPREAD FOR THESIS PUBLICATION
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Syracuse University School of Architecture
Thesis Claims This thesis project is interested in the public reception and understanding of the ever more pervasive internet infrastructure. Through a configuration of various programmatic elements dealing with the social, political and material components of digital data, the proposal projects an environment where the internet infrastructure gains a novel form of publicness and gradually reveals itself as an experience of sensual qualities.
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The ambitions of the project are carried through in the form of a publicly owned fictional data and genome center facility where a short circuit between the digital and genome data renders our digital-selves as personal as our DNA. The fictional narrative emphasizes a political interest in the approach and lays the groundwork for a design project that builds upon the ambiguity of the image on how human and non-human agents occupy space. The work is to be received as a rhetorical device to experience a produced condition rather than an explanation of a given condition.
THE PERSONAL DATA INITIATIVE
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“...an environment where the internet infrastructure gains a novel form of publicness and gradually reveals itself as an experience of sensual qualities.�
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THESIS CLAIMS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Tendencies
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Research is not a linear process. Many academic and non-academic sources have come under scrutiny at various stages. As some of the artifacts are clearly central for the primary areas of interest, some resources are not and they symbolize tangential dialogs which were worthwhile to take a look at.
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ARTIFACT 1
Eyes That Do Not See: Tracking the Self in the Age of the Data Center Kazys Varnelis
Andrea Branzi, Archizoom, No-Stop City, 1969
“No type of building embodies 21st-century culture more distinctly than the data center.” “But more than just a matter of economics or security, the data center’s relationship to architecture embodies our cultural condition. Where the factory embodies processes of industrialization and modernization, data centers exemplify what Gilles Deleuze calls ‘control society’.” “It’s function is not to maximize storage but to optimize flow.”
“Take Google: the search giant’s greatest innovation is not the search itself, rather how the corporation tunes its search results individually to modulate what its algorithms calculate we should see.” “Deleuze concludes that under control society, with the breakdown of public and private, individuals cease to exist, becoming ‘dividuals.’ fragmentary selves that can then be discretely targeted by corporations.”
“We demonstrate our productivity through the data we generate, along with our ability to be in touch at all times.”
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ARTIFACT 2
“...So it really is a series of tubes.” Google’s Data Centers, Noo-politics and the Architecture of Hegemony in Cyberspace Thomas Pearce
‘Where the Internet Lives’ 2012 Photographer: Connie Zhou
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After Google published the photos of its data centers under the title ‘Where the Internet Lives’, Photoshop forensics figured out that the photos have been very heavily edited in order to achieve the effect of a perfectly symmetrical single point perspective. This text has been crucial in developing an understanding of the underlying motives technology companies have in the ways they represent their services and the internet infrastucture.
“...the natural landscape of the romantic tradition - in its entirety cultivated and exploited, known and broadcasted - has lost its aura of mystery and danger. Instead, the infrastructural, (post)industrial and urban landscape has become the source of the Sublime.”
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ARTIFACT 3
Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet Andrew Blum
Blum’s book has been very useful at the beginning stages of the research in understanding the physcial infrastructure of the internet. The author travels to the most important sites of the global internet such as critical data centers in the US and the UK, important data center areas such as Amsterdam in the Netherlands or Ashburn, VA. He also talks about the policies and the major companies that has built up the internet by building various exchange points. He also talks about the connective elements between the data centers such as the submarine fiber optic cables.
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TOP:Submarine fiber optic cables 2018 submarinecablemap.com MID:Fiberoptic cable being loaded into the ship which will lay Google’s submarine infrastructure. 2019, WIRED BOTTOM LEFT:Layers of submarine fiberoptic cables. 2019, WIRED BOTTOM RIGHT:Amsterdam data centers. 2019
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ARTIFACT 4
The Knowledge Box Ken Isaacs
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One could think of the data center as a knowledge box as well. So much knowledge about a person or about anything that the viewer would be able to get to know the subject even better than the subject themselves.
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ARTIFACT 5
A Clockwork Orange Stanley Kubrick
ARTIFACT 6
Untitled Ettore Sottsass
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ARTIFACT 7
The Digital Cloud and the Micropolitics of Energy Allison Carruth “This appeal to imagine one’s life uploaded to the cloud, and hence always at one’s fingertips, pops up again and again in IT marketing campaigns. With advertisements that zero in on a single hand holding a tablet or a pair of eyes reflected in a screen, calls to imagine the cloud persistently visualize individuals and their portable devices rather than infrastructures. When those infrastructures do appear, as in an AT&T campaign “The Network of Possibilities,” they are often rendered abstract in the form of connected dots or an iconic “wired Earth” image that signals a utopian and online global village.”
The article paints a picture of the political relationships connecting the internet infrastructure and the environment to each other.
ARTIFACT 8
The Strange Geopolitics of the International Cloud Ingrid Burrington “Climate and latency aren’t the only reasons for a company to expand its data-center footprint. As The Cloud absorbs more and more global data and the phrase “postSnowden” sounds less and less pretentious, there’s increasing international interest in data sovereignty, the idea that a citizen’s personal data stays within their country’s borders.”
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ARTIFACT 9
Data, Data Everywhere Theresa MacPhail “Data mining would produce not merely a reflection of lived reality but reality itself. All difference between correlation and causation, the virtual and the real, the digital and the material worlds, would collapse. In a big data world, science might be dead, but long live the algorithm!” “My own research into the uses of big data in public health suggests that big data is less about finding solutions than it is about discovering better questions.” “Most of big data’s power comes not only from the size of the data being examined but from the combination of technologies at play in its analysis. Big data couples relational databases (a much older and more familiar technology) with “unstructured” data (anything from blogs, tweets, books, and audio and video files to photographs).”
ARTIFACT 10
Raging Bulls: How Wall Street Got Addicted to Light-Speed Trading Jerry Adler
“Wall Street used to bet on companies that build things. Now it just bets on technologies that make faster and faster trades.” The red line is the fiber-optic cable laid in mid-1980s. Round trip time for data: 14.5 milliseconds The blue line is a line of microwave beams through air set up in 2012. Round trip time: 8.5 milliseconds
It is fascinating to see that the internet becomes an outstandingly physical question of distances when it comes to algorithmic stock trading, which is the majority of the practice nowadays. TENDENCIES
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ARTIFACT 11
Black Transparency The Right to Know in the Age of Mass Surveillance Metahaven “Super-jurisdiction means that the law of one country can, through various forms of cooperation and association implied by server locations and network connections, be extended into and enacted in another. The US, as a result of its unique position in managing the internet’s core, also has jurisdiction over all so-called top level domains, no matter where they are hosted and by whom. All top-level domain names (dot-com, dot-org, dot-net, etc.) must be registered through VeriSign, a Virginia-based company.”
Captives of the Cloud Part I Book Chapter / Essay
“Wael Ghonim, Google’s Egyptian executive, said: ‘If you want to liberate a society just give them the internet.’ But how does one liberate a society that already has the internet? In a society permanently connected through pervasive broadband networks, the shared internet is, bit by bit and piece by piece, overshadowed by the cloud.” “The internet can be compared to a patchwork of city-states, or an archipelago of islands.”
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“in the cloud the user no longer needs to understand how a software program works or where his or her data really is. The important thing is that it works.” “The internet’s dispersed architecture gives way to the cloud’s central model of data storage and management, handled and owned by a handful of corporations.” “informal relationships between law enforcement agencies allow for governmental access to data in the possession, custody, or control of cloud service providers over whom the requesting country does not otherwise have jurisdiction.”
“Beijing put forth regulations requiring users to register on social medial sites with their real name identities by March 2012: regulation comparable to policies already spontaneously embraced by Facebook and Google.”
Captives of the Cloud Part II Book Chapter / Essay
“In the cloud, such digital convergence goes even further: data becomes more effectively and thoroughly harvested, analyzed, validated, monetized, looked into, and controlled than in the internet; its centralization is not just one of protocol, but also of location.” “The cloud presupposes a geography where data centers can be built. It presupposes an environment protected and stable enough for its server farms to be secure, for its operations to run smoothly and uninterrupted. It presupposes redundant power grids, water supplies, high-volume, high-speed fiber-optic connectivity, and other advanced infrastructure. It presupposes cheap energy, as the cloud’s vast exhaust violates even the most lax of environmental rules.”
THE PERSONAL DATA INITIATIVE
Thesis Document “data haven in 1996 as the information equivalent to a tax haven. This place where data that cannot legally be kept can be stashed for later use; an offshore web host.” “A notorious example in internet law, Sealand was, in the early 2000s, home to the servers of HavenCo, a startup providing offshore data hosting beyond the reach of any jurisdiction.” “Amazon kicked all WikiLeaks files from its servers, marking the effective beginning of a pan-industrial, state-corporate embargo. Amazon’s decision was prompted by an aggressive call to arms from Joe Lieberman, senior US Senator for Connecticut, and chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security. Lieberman urged American enterprises including Amazon to stop providing services to the whistleblowing site, even though he had no legal authority to enforce this. His words amounted to nothing more than an opinion.”
“All Twitter user information is stored on servers in the US, which are accessible to US law enforcement with or without a court order.” “Under the Stored Communications Act, a grand jury can subpoena certain types of data from third parties whose only role is storing that data.” “all that information―all that information capacity―looms over us, not quite visible, not quite tangible, but awfully real; amorphous, spectral; hovering nearby, yet not situated in any one place. Heaven must once have felt this way to the faithful.”
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TENDENCIES
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TENDENCIES
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Captives of the Cloud Part III: All Tomorrow’s Clouds Book Chapter / Essay
“The internet began as a place too complicated for nation-states to understand; it ended up, in the second decade of the twenty-first century, as a place only nation-states seem to understand.” “restore national sovereignty over data space” “Infrastructure gets political when things donÕt work.” “The activist group NullifyNSA has taken on the task of disabling the NSA by shutting off the water supply to its data centers. The fascinating proposition is a stark reminder that the ability to spy and to store data is ultimately dependent on electricity and cooling.” “Boldin points out the ecological disaster that is the NSA, adding that a state like Utah is in a state of near-constant drought. The fact that all these precious resources are being used to spy on the world should be disgusting to nearly everyone.”
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Luxembourg and Switzerland’s recent wealth havens, or freeports for property in transit mostly expensive art also offer data storage. The second definition of data sovereignty is personal. Every internet user should own all of his or her online data. Jonathan Obar critiques the idea, but for the wrong reasons. He claims that personal data sovereignty is fallible because we have now big data.”
“The possibility for a network, centralized, decentralized, or distributed to override jurisdiction and state power is a foundational dream of the internet, as well as a perpetual mirage shaped and inspired by science fiction. What was once thought to be the internet; a deterritorialized space amongst a world of nation-states is known today to be incredibly saturated with the spatial implications of borders, jurisdictions and sovereignity.” “We have become the enslaved consumers of nonsensical abstractions. No one has ever seen the cloud, or its main tenant, big data. These are objects of ideology and belief, and at times, treacherous harbingers of Big Brother.” “The spectacle of technology needs to be unleashed to further the ends of those who wish for a way of their own, rather than rule over others. People are real. Clouds aren’t.” “Democracy and people need to forever come before clouds. Drinking water needs to always be prioritized over spying. Life itself is the enemy of surveillance.”
Metahaven’s book and the office’s online content has been one of the primary sources of influence as I formed an opinion for the value of personal data and the geopolitical realites of surveillance. Metahaven’s work and narrative over Wikileaks and different types of datahavens are important precedents to study for this thesis.
“Data sovereignty provides an explicit tool to break a level of abstraction provided by the cloud. The idea of having the abstraction of the cloud when we want it, and removing it when we don’t, is a powerful one. To break down the abstraction of the cloud, the internet needs to be more localized.”
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*Original Content TENDENCIES
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ARTIFACT 12
AM4, Equinix Data Center in Amsterdam Benthem Crouwel Architects, Equinix
28 Equinix is the biggest data center company in the world. The company boasts the highest level of connectivity to big players such as Facebook and Google. The company’s flagship data center in Amsterdam has a sleek and modern facade with an aesthetic strategy of looking like a cloud or a mist from different angles. Matters of data privacy, energy usage or draught are not subjects of primary concerns for this building’s architecture.
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ARTIFACT 13
San Cataldo Cemetery Aldo Rossi
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TENDENCIES
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ARTIFACT 14
The Data Center Inside a Cold War Nuclear Bunker Albert France-Lanord Architects, Bahnhof Data Centers
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ARTIFACT 15
The Environmental Toll of a Netflix Binge Ingrid Burrington
The impact of data centers—really, of computation in general—isn’t something that really galvanizes the public, partly because that impact typically happens at a remove from everyday life. The average amount of power to charge a phone or a laptop is negligible, but the amount of power required to stream a video or use an app on either device invokes services from data centers distributed across the globe, each of which uses energy to perform various processes that travel through the network to the device. One study (weirdly enough, sponsored by the American Coal Association, its purpose to enthuse about how great coal is for technology) estimated that a smartphone streaming an hour of video on a weekly basis uses more power annually than a new refrigerator.
ARTIFACT 16
Data Flows and Water Woes: The Utah Data Center Mel Hogan
This article focuses on the direct relationship of NSA’s massive data center in Utah with the water resources of the very dry area. The surveillance giant requires gasllons of water everyday for cooling its servers, the author criticizes the authorities for prioritizing cheap energy over local water resources in their decision of building this facility in Utah. This article makes a very similar claim to the Metahaven’s book as it ties surveillance to draught.
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ARTIFACT 17
Snowball & Snowmobile Amazon Web Services (AWS)
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80 TB CAPACITY
AWS Snowball
THE PERSONAL DATA INITIATIVE
AWS is the most commonly used cloud service in the world. They came up with products such as Snowball and Snowmobile to physically tranasfer high amounts of data to their own servers from their customers. Snowball essentially is an impact-proof 80TB hard disk.
Thesis Document
100 PETABYTE CAPACITY
100 PB = 100,000 TB
AWS Snowmobile
For bigger loads, and according to Amazon they have an unbelievable amount of cutsomers asking for exabytes of data transfers (1 Exabyte = 1000 Petabyte) Amazon pulls up this truck of data storage to the customer’s data center and physically transfers the data. Amazon says that the amount of data stored on a single truck would take 26 years to transfer over fiberoptic cables, whereas the truck can get the data to anywhere in the world in less than 6 months.
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ARTIFACT 18
The Architectural Internet of the Eighteenth Century’s Optical Telegraphy Dimitris Papanikolaou
This is a fascinating precedent because of the functional clarity of the buidings, in contrast to the modern day data centers.
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TENDENCIES
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Yale Center for Genome Analysis Site Visit & Interview
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The information generated by our activities (voluntarily or otherwise) fill up the majority of data centers. The information filling up the storage of a genome center is also provided by us, but has nothing to do with our activities. If the telecommunication data centers back-up our identities by what we do, the genome center backs us up by what we are.
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Boxes of biological samples, medical supplies and specific equipment fill the wet lab.
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Most of the sequencing process is fulfilled by machines like this one.
SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture Interview with the Associate Director of Yale Center for Genome Analysis, Assistant Professor of Genetics Kaya Bilguvar, MD. Question: We are in a facility for DNA sequencing, could you very briefly explain what that means and for what purpose it is done generally in this facility?
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Kaya Bilguvar: Essentially DNA is the molecule that organizes the organisms and it’s inherited from our parents. The entire biological program is stored in the DNA and how those genes are being expressed. One of the ideas of gene sequencing is to be able to identify what causes diseases, because this is a biomedical facility. So we’re looking for the differences in normal people versus sick people but that’s only one application of that. You can sequence the DNA of a new organism, essentially it helps the classification of organisms. You can try to sequence the modifications on the DNA, which is called the epigenetic modifications that actually is a part of the regulation of how the genes are regulated when they are turned on and off in the cell. It is essentially that the DNA replicates itself by complementarity. There’s the polymerization process, so there’s a template. And then it copies itself from generations to generations as well as from cells. So this is essentially a replication of that event whereby we can identify the sequence of inheritance and we can associate development, disease, species or anything that you can think of in biology. Q: Do you think that this type of facilities will be more widespread in the future? KB: Yes, even though the technology is changing and everything is getting smaller. The footprint of the facilities is changing as well to the point that you may not need very specified facilities to be able to do sequencing. But yes, when we started this thing 10
years ago, it was almost something similar to landing on the moon because it was being done for the first time. The first human genome sequencing with the older technologies took five billion dollars and 10 years. Nowadays we can do the same thing for a thousand dollars over a day right now. Since it’s a much more developed technology, different facilities are popping up everywhere. But at the same time the technology is changing very rapidly so how these facilities are going to be thought and constructed may change but the need for this application is ever growing and it’s becoming more and more widespread. Q: How often do the patients or the subjects you’re working with raise concerns about their personal information being stored here for an extended period? KB: That’s a very good question and a very complex question to answer shortly. Patients are not generally that much worried about it because patients are in dire situations. And this is kind of the only way, the most revolutionary way to identify the cause of the disease and potentially a cure for that. But more important is sequencing healthy and normal people, and that area is a little more complex. There’s a big debate over privacy and what is the ethics of the practice because you can predict a lot of diseases that will happen to those individuals, although they don’t have the disease at the time of sequencing. The insurance companies are obviously salivating on that to determine who to insure and who to not insure. There are some laws in place to protect people against discrimination against those things.
THE PERSONAL DATA INITIATIVE
Thesis Document When you sequence the genome of a person, you can identify who that person is. Obviously it is the most, I guess, detailed information you can generate about the person. I would argue that it is almost more unique than the fingerprint, their face or whatever image.
disease with multiple physiologic biochemical and other sorts of imaging data?
One thing that you have seen is that our data storage is a very well protected building and that there’s a physical restriction to access the building. Another aspect is that it’s also very restricted access to the servers electronically online. There are multiple layers of security used to be able to access the information, there are multiple levels of authentication. Every user has their own passwords and usernames. On top of it there is a second level of security; even if somebody hacks my password, they still cannot access because there’s a real time code that comes to my device of choice. So they need to hack multiple things to be able to do that. And then, you know, all of these things are done as so-called D-ID, although the genome data is there, there’s no personal identifiers like the birth date or the patient name or anything else that can be matched easily between the genome data. But at the end, I can’t say that everyone is completely protected from identificiation. One can find the way to trace it back if they are knowledgeable of certain expertise.
KB: There are different models in that as well. There are some pharmaceutical companies actually doing exactly what we’re doing here for the sole purpose of developing new drug targets. They are sequencing very large cohorts, like hundreds of thousands of patients, if not millions, to be able to identify the same thing. There are some companies actually now, contacting centers like us to see if we want to partner with them to sell the data to the pharmaceutical companies.
Q: Does a higher quantity of personal data directly impact the success rate of research? KB: Short answer would be yes. Right now there are a lot of sophisticated ways of data analysis, like the machine learning algorithms and all that. Nowadays the so-called genomic personalized medicine is integrating oldest genomic data that was generated from both patients and healthy individuals with their very comprehensive health care records. So the matrix is ever growing. There is a lot of data out there and it’s not only us obviously. There are many people around the world doing this at both the institution and the country levels.
Q: Can the stored data be sold to private companies for their business and maybe research purposes?
And as you can imagine, that’s also a very tricky area to figure out in terms of patient privacy. Who owns that data? Is it the person who generates data or the owner of the genomes? There are different models actually being developed. There are some companies out there who are now offering money to the individuals to come and donate their genomic data. To some extent, it’s becoming a commodity to sell so that they can aggregate data sets and go to the pharmaceuticals and sell them for even more money to make profit. But yes, that’s a model also developing right now. I see. Q: If you were to compare the program of this facility to another program, like a bank, museum, hotel or something like that, what would it be? Is it more like a bank or maybe like a museum? This maybe is a very obvious or an open-ended question, but just wondering. KB: I guess my quick reductionist answer is pretty much like a bank where you store huge amounts of data, essentially a big storage facility. That’s biological data. That’s your story. The archives are very important as we’re trying not to lose any data, because as we know as the newer analysis methods
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Syracuse University School of Architecture develop, going back to those data and doing reanalysis is very fruitful. You can get the same data from a different perspective. So I guess there’s some analogy to a museum or an archive concept there as well. Q: Do you think that a genome center and its data center should be concealed from the people? Do you think it’s also important that it can be easily visible and recognizable because of the important function it serves for everyone?
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KB: So I I think one of the reasons for that is that generally these technologies are so expensive in terms of infrastructure. People are generally approaching this idea from a functional point of view. Right, you need to have this standard security for the people who are working there, the type of functionality that you would ask for in terms of heat regulation or the power regulation that’s coming to supply those machines. People are really not thinking about that dimension. But I think you have a point there, because whenever somebody wants to visit my lab and wants to look at what we’re doing here, I am very enthusiastic about showing them both the wet lab and the dry lab because it’s not only the wet lab that matters. The impact of what we’re doing here comes through both of those facilities so I’m very enthusiastic about showing them. I think from that point of view, I would argue; What happens if you were to think about any facility that’s being physically protected - what would happen if you were to steal one of those drives that you saw? You can’t recover any data because you broke the entire network. So I think the more important aspect is the online access restriction or the security. I think one can be a lot more relaxed thinking about the physical security and try to emphasize the importance of that facility, both the wet lab and the dry lab. To show people the infrastructure that is needed to be able to achieve this impact that people are benefiting right now in many areas of biomedicine.
Q: When you talk about showing infrastructure do you mean to show what’s inside? Yeah, exactly. It wouldn’t hurt if more people were to see what it takes to be able to store and analyze this data. And architecturally demonstrating this to general public I think would be more impactful. I mean, most of these things are grant money and university money but we also have a lot of private donors and when they see the infrastructure, what it takes to be able to get one patient’s blood sample and to identify the disease causing mutation, they get pretty impressed and write bigger checks.
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Atlantic Submarine Fiber optic Cable Landing Points and Landing Stations Site Visits
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The sub-marine fiber optic cables connecting North America and Europe are the most heavily used highways of information in the global internet infrastructure. Understanding the importance of data centers in NYC depends on registering the critical location of the city that renders it as a node of information exchange. THE PERSONAL DATA INITIATIVE
Thesis Document
FIBER OPTIC CABLE LANDING POINTS Manasquan, NJ Manahawkin, NJ Manhattan Beach, NY Arverne, NY Far Rockaway, NY Shirley, NY FIBER OPTIC CABLE LANDING STATIONS Tuckerton, NJ Shirley, NY
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LOCATION:
ARVERNE, NY CABLE LANDING POINT
OFFICIAL FIBEROPTIC CABLE MARKER UNOFFICIAL FRAGMENT POSSIBLY ACTING AS A MARKER
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
The rocky extension from the beach towards the sea is almost exactly at the location of the eyeballed fiberoptic cable landing. A wooden pole is placed at the beginning of the extension with 2 pieces of red cloth and an advertisement of a surfing brand. Almost in a mythical way, one could interpret this pole as a possible marker for the cable landing however, the function of the pole is unclear.
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49 As one moves inlands from the shore, repetitive apartment buildings and lifeguaerd cabins come to sight.
SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
LOCATION:
FAR ROCKAWAY, NY CABLE LANDING POINT
OFFICIAL FIBEROPTIC CABLE MARKER UNOFFICIAL FRAGMENT POSSIBLY ACTING AS A MARKER
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Walking from the apartment complexes towards the ocean, one notices a red flag marking the top of a dune. This spot is also supposedly the location where the fiberoptic cable makes landing. The flag doesn’t bear any connection to the fiberoptic cable laying under, but would be perfectly located iof it were to do so.
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Thesis Document
The area is filled with leftovers of bonfires and various informal activities taking place.
A lonely fisherman on the shore.
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
LOCATION:
MANAHWAKIN, NJ CABLE LANDING POINT
OFFICIAL FIBEROPTIC CABLE MARKER UNOFFICIAL FRAGMENT POSSIBLY ACTING AS A MARKER
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
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Thesis Document
57 On this spot, there was no outstandiong markers on a spot close enough to the ocean to be considered a possible untitled marker. A couple of warning signs of different sorts and some personal belongings have been documented on site.
SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
LOCATION:
MANASQUAN, NJ CABLE LANDING POINT
OFFICIAL FIBEROPTIC CABLE MARKER UNOFFICIAL FRAGMENT POSSIBLY ACTING AS A MARKER
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Manasquan is a site with lots of fragments that could be taken for markers. As some of the posts on the beach do not have an immediately understandable purpose, some of them are placed as warnings or as markers of spots of photography. The transmitter tower at this spot may have a connection to the fiberoptic landing however, no such indicators have been encountered.
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
LOCATION:
SHIRLEY, NY CABLE LANDING POINT
OFFICIAL FIBEROPTIC CABLE MARKER UNOFFICIAL FRAGMENT POSSIBLY ACTING AS A MARKER
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture Shirley stands out as one of the few locations where official fiberoptic cable markers were observed. The cabin photographed on the right is located on the shore, where the cable could be making a landing. The following photos of the warning signs are taken on the way back inlands, along the road leading to the remote landing location.
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Thesis Document
LOCATION:
TUCKERTON, NJ CABLE LANDING STATION
OFFICIAL FIBEROPTIC CABLE MARKER UNOFFICIAL FRAGMENT POSSIBLY ACTING AS A MARKER
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
LOCATION:
BULLEWIJK, AMSTERDAM DATA CENTER AREA
NUMBER OF DATA CENTERS VISITED (FROM THE OUTSIDE):
2
ADJACENT PROGRAMS IN THE AREA: AUTOMOBILE STORAGE FACILITY OFFICES ELECTROTECHNICAL INDUSTRY OPERA & BALLET DECORATELIER LUXURY CAR GALLERY SELF-STORAGE TESLA TECHNICAL SERVICE
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
LOCATION:
DATA CENTER 1 BULLEWIJK
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
LOCATION:
DATA CENTER 2 BULLEWIJK
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
LOCATION:
SCIENCE PARK, AMSTERDAM DATA CENTER AREA
NUMBER OF DATA CENTERS VISITED (FROM THE OUTSIDE):
2
ADJACENT PROGRAMS IN THE AREA: UNIVERSITY OFFICES START-UP VILLAGE
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
LOCATION:
START-UP VILLAGE SCIENCE PARK
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
LOCATION:
DATA CENTER 1 SCIENCE PARK
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
LOCATION:
DATA CENTER 2 SCIENCE PARK
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
LOCATION:
TELEPORT, AMSTERDAM DATA CENTER AREA
NUMBER OF DATA CENTERS VISITED (FROM THE OUTSIDE):
3
ADJACENT PROGRAMS IN THE AREA: UNIVERSITY BUILDING TECH COMPANY OFFICES ELECTROTECHNICAL INDUSTRY TELECOM OFFICES USED CAR DEALER SELF-STORAGE MOSQUE ANIMAL HOSPITAL BURGER KING HOTEL BALLROOM POLICE ACADEMY DANCE STUDIO
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
LOCATION:
DATA CENTER 1 TELEPORT
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
LOCATION:
DATA CENTER 2 TELEPORT
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
LOCATION:
DATA CENTER 3 TELEPORT
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Syracuse University School of Architecture
LOCATION:
CHICAGO, IL DATA CENTER
350 E Cermak Road is one of the biggest data centers in the US. The building is the second highest electricity consumer in Chicago right after O’Hare Airport. The building’s exterior appearance doesn’t make a loud announcement of its function. The historic ornaments and figures on the facade from its prior function of a printing press factory remain in tact.
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Similar to the fiberoptic cable landing points , the infrastructure itself doesn’t tell much about the fiber optic infrastructure however, out on the street one becomes aware of the cables’ presence through warning signs. There are also a high number of signs informing the viewers about the presence of CCTV cameras.
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SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Data Center Strategies
FENCING
RESTRICTION OF PHYSICAL ACCESS
HVAC
VISUAL SIGNIFIER
PERIPHERIAL WATER
RESTRICTION OF PHYSICAL ACCESS
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FAKE TRANSPARENCY TRANSPARENCY
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Thesis Document
The proposal learns from the strategies observed on site visits and appropriates them for different purposes to construct new hierarchies and provoke existing conceptions.
PERIPHERIAL VEGETATION RESTRICTION OF PHYSICAL ACCESS
FACADE PANELS TRANSPARENCY
WATER AVAILABILITY ENVIRONMENTAL FEATURES
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EYE CANDY MARKETABILITY
SITE VISITS & INTERVIEWS
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Criteria for Evaluation The project should be evaluated based on the intentions explained on the ‘Thesis Claims’ section. The research, site visits, interviews and production made beforehand should be guiding factors for a well-rounded and critical proposal and the evaluation should be made accordingly. The design decisions should bolster the goal of building up a critical narrative.
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Thesis Prep Document
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CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION
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Production THESIS PREP Exercises & Other Work
108
Throughout the semester different concepts have been explored such as tracing the physical path of data, the strategies behind the representation of data centers, a physical model diagrammatically representing data racks and many more.
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Syracuse, NY
2 S Clinton St #40, Syracuse, NY 13202
33 Thomas St New York, NY 10007
60 Hudson St New York, NY 10013
Science Park 610, 1098 XH Amsterdam, Netherlands
624 S Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90017 350 E Cermak Rd Chicago, IL 60616
Eschborner Landstraße 100, 60489 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Tokyo-to Tokyo-shi 206-0035 Japan 43881 Devin Shafron Drive, Ashburn, VA 20146
Jiuxian Qiao North Road, Beijing, 100015 China
43940 Digital Loudoun Plaza, Ashburn VA 20147
Hofwisenstrasse 56, 8153 Rümlang, Switzerland
109 Hanwei Bldg. 7 Guanghua Road, Chaoyang Beijing 100020 China
Schaffhauserstrasse 101, Zurich, Switzerland
Exercise Drawing Iteration 1
PRODUCTION - THESIS PREP
Syracuse University School of Architecture
110
Exercise Drawing Iteration 2
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111
Exercise Physical Model Iteration 2
PRODUCTION - THESIS PREP
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112
Network of
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Fragments
PRODUCTION - THESIS PREP
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PRODUCTION - THESIS PREP
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PREVENTING NEXT 9/11
R E T
EVER THIRSTY GIANT NSA DATA CENTER IN UTAH
A W
SURVEILLANCE / DATAVEILLANCE
G N I R SHA
E B Y THEC DA
M R S E K A W E L (VOLUNTARY) CAPTIVES O I K P I S W M N E FACE RECOGNITION E V S A N H I R A A H E C DAT S K U BLOC SUBMARINE SUBTERRANEAN
116
PROTECTED
DRAWING THE INTERNET THE PERSONAL DATA INITIATIVE
FIBER OPTIC CABLES SI
INVISIBLE HIDDEN NEGLECTED BIG-BOX
DA
Thesis Document
M A E R D K
SENSORS
N U P R EMPIRE EATA
T N ME
OF THE CLOUD
D N A SEAL
THE CLOUD
Y A B RATE
PI
IGNS CLUES MARKERS WARNINGS MAINTENANCE INTERIORS?
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‘CYBERRIFIC’
ATA CENTERS
‘WHERE THE INTERNET LIVES’ ‘SERIES OF TUBES’
PRODUCTION - THESIS PREP
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PRODUCTION - THESIS PREP
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PRODUCTION - THESIS PREP
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PRODUCTION - THESIS PREP
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Progress THESIS - Tendencies 2.0 Content for 1st and 2nd Reviews + Desk Crits 124
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THE PERSONAL DATA INITIATIVE PRIMARY PROGRAMS
GENOME ANALYSIS FACILITY
DATA CENTER
SUBSEQUENT PROGRAMS
START-UP VILLAGE
WORK SPACE FOR SOCIAL ORGANIZATIONS
PUBLIC SPACE
DATA PORT / TRANSFER POINT TO NEWLY CONSTRUCTED OFF-SHORE DATA HAVEN
125
DATE: PROGRESS WORK - THESIS
1/14
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Review 1
126
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127 Site Collage 1
DATE: PROGRESS WORK - THESIS
2/7
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Review 1
Site Collage 2
128
Site Collage 3
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129
0
80’
160’
1’ = 1/80”
Site Plan Iteration 1
DATE: PROGRESS WORK - THESIS
2/7
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Review 1
130
Genome Lab Collages
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131
0
80’
160’
1’ = 1/80”
Subterranean Plan Iteration 1
DATE: PROGRESS WORK - THESIS
2/7
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Review 1
132
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133
Composite Progress Drawing
DATE: PROGRESS WORK - THESIS
2/7
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Review 1
134
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Initial Narrative Diagram
The conversation around this diagram has been a very important milestone along the way of narrative deveelopment. Struggling with ways of populating the spaces with activities, I was considering moving with a more complicated narrative than it needed to be. Prof Corso and Miller have been in favor of the narrative whereas Profeta strongly opposed it. I proceeded by keeping the left portion of the diagram and getting rid of the right part.
DATE: PROGRESS WORK - THESIS
2/7
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Desk crit
Perspective render 1
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Perspective render 2
137
Site section
DATE: PROGRESS WORK - THESIS
2/19
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Desk crit
138
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139
Design iterations
DATE: PROGRESS WORK - THESIS
2/26
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Desk crit
140 Formal Iterations
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141
Formal Iterations
DATE: PROGRESS WORK - THESIS
3/6
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Desk crit
142 Site plan iteration
THE PERSONAL DATA INITIATIVE
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143 Site plan
DATE: PROGRESS WORK - THESIS
3/8
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Review 2
144
Site plan iteration
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145
Cable markers PROGRESS WORK - THESIS
DATE:
3/11
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Review 2
146
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147
DATE: PROGRESS WORK - THESIS
3/11
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Review 2
148
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149
DATE: PROGRESS WORK - THESIS
3/11
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Review 2
150
Collages
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Collage
151
DATE: PROGRESS WORK - THESIS
3/11
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Desk Crit
Public Sequence
152
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153
DATE: PROGRESS WORK - THESIS
3/25
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Desk Crit
154
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155
Council Iterations
DATE: PROGRESS WORK - THESIS
3/28
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Desk Crit
156
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157
Section Sketches
DATE: PROGRESS WORK - THESIS
4/1
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Desk Crit
158
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Plan development
159
Council section development
DATE: PROGRESS WORK - THESIS
4/13
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Desk Crit 4/22 Daniele Meeting Things to go over PRESENTATION METHOD - Start with screen shared Powerpoint presentation of thesis contention, research] and site visits - Introduce the proposal and fictional narrative - Formal diagrams, architectural strategies - The video - Plan animation showing the ‘path of personal data’ - Section and section oblique (?) drawings to talk about the public corridor from the basket ball court to the auditorium and the qualities of the data council roofscape. - Animate the zoom-in sequence in Aftereffects before hand to ensure maximum resolution - Conclusion DISCUSSION METHOD - Move to conceptboard with content clearly divided into their respective sections (Research, diagrams etc.) - Big advantage of Conceptboard: cursors POST REVIEW - Possibly compile things on a website for superjury submission. VIDEO - What type of narration? - Starting from a much more zoomed out shot? - 00:44 - Tiles? Additional view facing the op posite direction to follow. - 01:03 - Showing the Passage? Problem of direction - Shots from council roofscape, council interior, repetitive elements and nightshot from the basketball and data corridor to follow. - Not gonna show people, but will have a seperate board with fake instagram posts from the site. Focus on the ‘personal byproducts’ on renders.
160
SECTION OBLIQUE -I like seeing the roofscape but maybe as Greg suggested a more conventional site Axon could work better -What do you think? SECTION PERSPECTIVE -To be developed, probaly with render underlay STILL PERSPECTIVES W MINOR ANIMATION? - Fake insta posts instead of this. PLAN - Render overlay and linework underway, I am planning to collage some of the context content around so it works as a site plan when zoomed out.
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161
Composite plan drawing development
DATE: PROGRESS WORK - THESIS
4/22
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Final Content THESIS
162
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163
also presented at:
thepersonaldatainitiative.com
FINAL CONTENT
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164
This thesis project is interested in the public reception and understanding of the ever more pervasive internet infrastructure. Through a configuration of various programmatic elements dealing with the social, political and material components of digital data, the proposal projects an environment where the internet infrastructure gains a novel form of publicness and gradually reveals itself as an experience of sensual qualities.
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165
White noise and chill The Personal Data Initiative
FINAL CONTENT
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166
Bleachers The Personal Data Initiative
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The ambitions of the project are carried through in the form of a publicly owned fictional data and genome center facility where a short circuit between the digital and genome data renders our digital-selves as personal as our DNA.
167
FINAL CONTENT
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‘Where the Internet Lives’ Google data center, Connie Zhou 168
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AT&T Long Lines Building Data center, Tribeca, NYC
The internet infrastructure is dominantly characterized by its mute nature and inaccessibility that constructs the ethereal reading of the cloud.
FINAL CONTENT
169
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Cooling towers on the roof of data center Amsterdam, the Netherlands 170
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Thesis Document
Electric wires around ‘DATACENTER.COM’ Amsterdam, the Netherlands
The material byproducts and cautionary signifiers become the rare moments where the internet infrastructure is recognizable in the built environment. FINAL CONTENT
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Syracuse University School of Architecture
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There are several fiber-optic cables that connect the internet of Europe and North America most of which make landings along the coasts of NY and NJ.
173
Map of visited cable landing locations in NY & NJ
FINAL CONTENT
Syracuse University School of Architecture
I visited some of the landing locations looking for different types of signifiers for the underlying infrastructure that is very critical for our lives. Very few locations featured official markers such as buried fiberoptic cable warning signs where most locations featured various objects that could possibly be marking an important location. (p.174-175) 174
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Thesis Document
The sites featured traces of human activity and dominant sensual features such as the blowing wind and sound of waves which offered a promising setting for an unusual public adjacency to the internet infrastructure.(p.176-177)
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FINAL CONTENT
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LEFT ‘Official Markers’: Buried Fiber Warning Post Shirley, NY RIGHT ‘Possible Markers’ Manasquan, NJ
177
FINAL CONTENT
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179
Human activity and sensual features Rockaway Beach, Queens, NY PROJECT SITE
FINAL CONTENT
Syracuse University School of Architecture
FENCING
HVAC
RESTRICTION OF PHYSICAL ACCESS
VISUAL SIGNIFIER
FACADE PANELS
PERIPHERIAL VEGETATION
TRANSPARENCY
RESTRICTION OF PHYSICAL ACCESS
180
Most data centers in the built environment reject any sense of publicness and serve as hubs of pure functionality. The proposal appropriates some of the strategies present in the built environment to produce sensual effects and layers of revelation. THE PERSONAL DATA INITIATIVE
Thesis Document
PERIPHERIAL WATER RESTRICTION OF PHYSICAL ACCESS
FAKE TRANSPARENCY TRANSPARENCY
WATER AVAILABILITY ENVIRONMENTAL FEATURES
EYE CANDY MARKETABILITY
FINAL CONTENT
181
Syracuse University School of Architecture
182
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183
Present data management structure
FINAL CONTENT
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184
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185
Personal Data Initiative Involvement
FINAL CONTENT
Syracuse University School of Architecture
The personal data initiative is imagined as a middle agent that governs the handling of personal data by 3rd parties and undertakes the storage of them in its data centers. The users gain agency over their own data as the initiative offers the benefits enjoyed by the private entities back to the users. The project is located on the Far Rockaway Beach, Queens. The aggregation of a partially submerged rudimentary form houses all the programs necessary for the initiative to run.
186
The public, social and political programs are located on the center as the exterior areas around the data center zones offer opportunities for outdoor activities and interaction with the infrastructure.
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Thesis Document
Program Diagram 187
FINAL CONTENT
Syracuse University School of Architecture
The personal data council sits at the heart of the complex, where the elected delegates govern the handling of personal data in the digital sphere and fight private and public entities over policies. The elements clashing into each other form the reading of a politically charged space that is formed by the deconstruction of its surrounding. The fractured roof allows transparency from the habitable rooftop in to the council.
188
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Thesis Document
Over the majority of the site, the rudimentary form is submerged, revealing its content through elementary formal maneuvers or it gets manipulated to house specific public functions such as the auditorium in the background.
189
FINAL CONTENT
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190
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191
The personal data council - Interior FINAL CONTENT
Syracuse University School of Architecture
192
The personal data council - Rooftop
THE PERSONAL DATA INITIATIVE
Thesis Document
The personal data council - Surrounding 193
FINAL CONTENT
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194
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195
Elementary formal modifications FINAL CONTENT
Syracuse University School of Architecture
The form mimics the hot aisle/cold aisle air flow strategy of a typical data center floor in an attempt to communicate a caricature-like sense of functional clarity and to create expressive seams between the form and topography.
196
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Thesis Document
A public sequence carved through the site provides more defined spaces of activity and reveals the submerged forms in their full elevation. The formal elements take an expressive tone through the carve to provide opportunities for public activities and mark a disruption in the overall formal logic.
197
FINAL CONTENT
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198
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199
Hot Aisle / Cold Aisle - Rudimentary form FINAL CONTENT
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200
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Approaaching the carve 201
FINAL CONTENT
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Basketball
202
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Thesis Document
Progression through the carve 203
FINAL CONTENT
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204
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205
The carve - Top view FINAL CONTENT
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Data center - Elevation
206
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Data center - Bleachers 207
FINAL CONTENT
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208
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Thesis Document
Voleyball - Beach 209
FINAL CONTENT
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210
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211
Data center / Beach - White Noise and Chill FINAL CONTENT
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Far Rockaway Beach in Queens is selected as a testing ground for the strategy to be applied. Other than being one of the handful of locations for submarine cable landing from Europe, it also provides the grounds to challenge the conventional hierarchies of the data center typology.
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Thesis Document
It sets opportunities for unprecedented public adjacencies and offers an isolated urban moment where the sensual byproducts of the data infrastructure take an expressive tone and communicate the material reality of the seemingly ethereal digital data which is under control of an entity, in a real, physical place.
213
FINAL CONTENT
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214
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215
Composite plan drawing FINAL CONTENT
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216
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Skewed section drawing
217
FINAL CONTENT
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218
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Personal data council - Section oblique
219
Conceptual skewed section drawing - Elements
FINAL CONTENT
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220
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221
Basketball - Night FINAL CONTENT
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222
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223
Aeriel View - Dusk
FINAL CONTENT
Syracuse University School of Architecture
As a way to position yourself in the environment and experience how the infrastructure hums and blinks at you, please watch the video at: thepersonaldatainitiative.com/video
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All the content on a virtual board:
app.conceptboard.com/board/nm1n-e06g-sgd4-8sya-fyrk#
225
FINAL CONTENT
Syracuse University School of Architecture
BIBLIOGRAPHY Adler, Jerry. “Raging Bulls: How Wall Street Got Addicted to Light-Speed Trading.” Wired. Conde Nast, August 3, 2012. https://www.wired.com/2012/08/ff_wallstreet_trading/. “Amsterdam Data Centers: Internet Exchange Point & Colocation Services by Equinix.” Equinix. Accessed January 9, 2020. https://www.equinix.nl/locations/europe-colocation/netherlands-colocation/amsterdam-data-centers/. Black Transparency: the Right to Know in the Age of Mass Surveillance. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2015. Blum, Andrew. Tubes: a Journey to the Center of the Internet . New York: Ecco, 2019. 95. Burrington, Ingrid. “The Strange Geopolitics of the International Cloud.” The Atlantic, November 17, 2015. Burrington, Ingrid. “The Environmental Toll of a Netflix Binge.” The Atlantic, December 16, 2015. Carruth, Allison. “The Digital Cloud and the Micropolitics of Energy.” Public Culture 26, no. 2 (2014): 339–64. https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-2392093. Data Center - Pionen. Accessed January 9, 2020. https://www.bahnhof.net/page/datacenter-pionen. Fabrizi, Mariabruna. “The Knowledge Box by Ken Isaacs (1962).” SOCKS, February 10, 2018. http://socks-studio.com/2016/05/02/the-knowledge-box-by-ken-isaacs-1962/. Hogan, Mél. “Data Flows and Water Woes: The Utah Data Center.” Big Data & Society 2, no. 2 (2015): 205395171559242. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951715592429.
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Macphail, Theresa. “Data, Data Everywhere.” Public Culture 27, no. 2 (2015). Papanikolaou, Dimitris. “Choreographies of Information: The Architectural Internet of the Eighteenth Century’s Optical Telegraphy.” Geographies of Information, 2015. Pearce, Thomas. “„So It Really Is a Series of Tubes.‘ Google’s Data Centers, Noo-Politics and the Architecture of Hegemony in Cyberspace.” Enquiry: A Journal for Architectural Research 10, no. 1 (2013): 11. Reilly, Claire. “In the Future, Not Even Your DNA Will Be Sacred.” CNET. CNET, October 17, 2018. https://www.cnet.com/news/in-the-future-not-even-your-dna-is-sacred/.
THE PERSONAL DATA INITIATIVE
Thesis Document
Ryan, Jackson. “What AncestryDNA Taught Me about DNA, Privacy and the Complex World of Genetic Testing.” CNET. Accessed January 9, 2020. https://www.cnet.com/news/ancestrydna-taught-me-about-my-dna-privacy-and-the-complex-world-of-genetic-testing/. “Snowmobile.” Amazon. GLC, 1981. https://aws.amazon.com/snowmobile/. Stanley Kubricks A Clockwork Orange, n.d. Stephenson, Neal. “Mother Earth Mother Board.” Wired. Conde Nast, October 1, 2018. https:// www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/. Sveiven, Megan. “AD Classics: San Cataldo Cemetery / Aldo Rossi.” ArchDaily. ArchDaily, December 10, 2010. https://www.archdaily.com/95400/ad-classics-san-cataldo-cemetery-aldo-rossi. Varnelis, Kazys. “Eyes That Do Not See: Tracking the Self in the Age of the Data Center.” Harvard Design Magazine, 2014. Zhou, Marrian. “23andMe DNA Results to Be Used by Glaxo for New Drug Research.” CNET. CNET, July 26, 2018. https://www.cnet.com/news/23andme-dna-results-to-be-used-by-glaxofor-new-drug-research/.
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