Datapolis

Rotterdam Havenstad is no more and the westward move of the port has allowed for the city to reengage with its waters. DATAPOLIS is part of an urban intervention on Katendrecht that explores how Rotterdam could alternatively reengage with the water in former port areas.

It does so by inserting a contemporary industry, a hyperscale datacenter, in the heart of the city: the Meuse river. As such, it confronts us with the scale and architectural expression of the shadow world of society and our expanding hunger for data as the oil of the 21st century with our privacy as currency.