Bogland Data Centre - Digital infrastructure that does not cost the Earth - Ben Holmes

Boglands Data Centre – Digital infrastructure that does not cost the Earth A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the MPhil examination in Architecture and Urban Design (2014 - 2016) Ben Holmes Hughes Hall 27th May 2016 13,763 words

This thesis owes much to the following persons who, in a series of helpful discussions, shared their thoughts on my writing and the condition of Ireland’s rural communities and boglands and the prospect of their restoration: Gary Keogh, a data centre operator based in Dublin.

Laura Dewe Mathews an architect and friend based in London.

Cathal O’Donaghue on behalf of Commission for the Economic development of rural areas in Ireland.

Mark Campbell for his early thesis supervision.

Irenee Scalbert for his help, editorial knowledge and advice.

Oliver Petas, product developer at Google’s London’s office.

Ann Phelan, Irish government Minister for rural affairs.

I would also like to express my gratitude to Ingrid Schroder, the MPhil course director, for her unceasing encouragement and Mary Ann Steane, my thesis supervision, for her guidance, dedication, kindness and spelling corrections.

Contents

Introduction Part 1 - The local rural condition The history and condition of Ireland’s bogland’s Youth Migration and the difficulties facing rural settlements

Part 2 - Infrastructure that does not cost the earth Methods for rural recovery and growth Data centre infrastructure and its possibilities within Ireland Project management and resource considerations

14 17 21 25 30 33

Part 3 - Collaborative strategies for procurement Monivea site description and existing conditions 36 Benefits of using boglands for data centre design 39 Bog Land Data Centre procurement and funding 48 Conclusion

Glossary List of illustration Bibliography

52 56 57 58

“No more thy glassy brook reflects the day, but choked with sedges, works its weedy way; Sunk are thy bowers, in shapeless ruin all, and the long grass o’ertops the mouldering wall; and trembling, shrinking from the spoiler’s hand, far, far away, thy children leave the land.”

The Deserted Village – Oliver Goldsmith

Preceding Page An expanse of bog landscape the surface of which has been drained and mechanically extracted for fuel creating literal scars on the landscape of Irelands rural condition.

Left The deep cuts caused by industrial peat extraction create walls cut from the earth surface.

Right An expanse of intact and undamaged Irish bog covered with mosses and spring wildflowers.

Left Map of the 80,000ha of state owned bogs in central Ireland damaged for energy production.

Right Recently cut peat piled into long strips to dry is covered in plastic sheeting. Linear structures in the landscape.

Left Area of healthy active bog unharmed compared with an area of cut bog between 3-5m deep.

Right Vehicles and machinery used for industrial peat extraction, rusted and in some cases abandoned after years of use.

“A bog is its own diary; its mode of being is preservation of its past.... buried under the remains of future years’ growth and added to the layered record.”

(Robinson, 2007)

Introduction

In aiding the restoration of Monivea Bog in rural Galway, the Bogland’s Data Centre project seeks to provide a precedent for data centre infrastructure by integrating architectural and landscape goals. At the same time by improving the digital infrastructure of rural Ireland, new opportunities for growth of the local economy in rural areas such as small scale manufacturing and entrepreneurship are enabled that will help tackle the current problem of the Irish diaspora, now facing emptying rural communities. It builds on the observation that while awareness of the importance of Ireland’s bogs in securing a sustainable future has led to recent momentum in recovery efforts, there are vast areas of heavily damaged landscape which have no clear rehabilitation plan that could benefit from the country’s growing desire to establish itself as the European market leader in data centre infrastructure.

The principle questions guiding this project in which a data centre, a relatively new element of economic infrastructure, is located and integrated into a bogland site are: 1) How can the rural condition and the bog landscape add value to data centre infrastructure?

2) In turn how might the project’s implementation return value to improve the existing site and rural conditions?

3) What co-ordination of architecture and bog-edge landscape will both generate opportunities for harvesting renewable energy and fostering lowoperational-cost ‘start-up’ space while also addressing sensitivities about data-centre security (and thus the security of the data it handles) on the one hand, and the appearance of such a bog-edge landscape on the other?

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The purpose of this thesis is to critically analyse and understand the political, social and economic factors that will impinge on the realisation of the design. Part 1 traces the development of rural Ireland and how its identity has evolved over the last century, examining the destructive bogland damage, its effects on the environment and why it needs to be preserved and restored. It looks at this problem in the context of a declining rural youth population, its causes and the difficulties facing the rural condition today. Part 2 investigates methods that support the growth of rural Ireland, including tourism, creative industries and the digital economy, how these have succeeded and what more needs to be done to continue their growth. It looks at a new form of infrastructure intrinsically tied to the promotion of the digital economy, computer data centres, how these might sit within the context of Ireland and how they can develop in harmony with the rural condition to help alleviate the pressures and problems it faces. Part 3 investigates in detail the project site, its condition and the required bog restoration measures while analysing the unique aspects of bog sites and how their landscapes can aid in digital infrastructure through natural cooling energy savings and on site energy generation and how these could be incorporated successfully synergising the landscape and the built form. It also seeks to understand the best procurement routes and funding options available to realise the project, and how practical aspects of the scheme that have to be included within the design manifest and how these could potentially have an influence over the architecture of the project.

The information gathered for this essay has come from a period of research utilising a mixture of existing literature and site analysis observation and investigation. As well as this, interviews with individuals and companies working in these areas of technology were conducted during a ten month fieldwork period at Laura Dewe Mathews Architecture, a small Londonbased practice on s small project which has challenged me to think harder about how the rural is constructed, its brief requiring us to build with natural materials found or grown on the site.

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Plan - Monivea Bog 1 - Active bog 2 Degraded industrial bog 3 flooded bog 4 Floating Data Centre 5 Currantarmid Town

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The local rural condition “Turf is the ground beneath our feet, if we’ve paid for it, we own it and telling us to stop cutting is akin to asking us to give up practicing our religion” (Gillooly, 2015)

This chapter traces the development of rural Ireland and how its identity has evolved over the last century, examining the destructive bogland damage, its effects on the environment and why it needs to be preserved and restored. It looks at this problem in the context of a declining rural youth population, its causes and the difficulties epitomised by the rural condition today.

The history and condition of Ireland’s boglands Rural Ireland refers to the more than 98% of the country not contained within the five largest cities, the only areas of the country defined as predominantly urban (DAFM, 2014). Ireland’s rural fabric has much to do with the utilisation and exploitation of a rich and fertile landscape from the earliest settlers after 8000BC, who’s clearing of coastal forests for the development of grazing grasslands coalesced into the first field systems. As an island that has faced invasion, occupation and subjugation throughout its history, Ireland’s fertile natural resources have been exploited primarily for agricultural production and its land use patterns have subdivided the rural landscape into strips, dry stone wall field systems sparsely occupied by small family dwellings, each division another tone of the notional ‘forty shades of green’. This pattern of agricultural exploitation reflects the ongoing symbiotic relationship between Ireland’s rural communities and land they can farm. Their relationship with the bogland they cannot farm, another distinct and important element of the matrix landscape types in Ireland has recently become another matter altogether. Gently exploited in piecemeal fashion for centuries as a source of fuel, through peat cutting, the industrialisation of this process over the last half century has resulted in enormously damaging impacts to the local ecology and blighted the appearance of bog landscape across Ireland.

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The earliest maps of Ireland were surveys of its boglands by Richard Griffiths in 1809, commissioned to assess the potential of growing hemp for navy sail cloth during the war.

Family stacking turf to dry and transport, the turf cutting was an event that involved the whole community.

A peat bog is a wetland landscape of thick, compacted soil forming a raised hump of land, typically 3-5m deep, that has accumulated over thousands of years in cool, wet climates from dead and decaying organic plant matter. Fed solely by rainwater, mosses and shrubs are the predominant surface plants, acting like sponges to create a waterlogged 1 surface that is low in nutrients, generally acidic and offering little fertility for agriculture (Wilson, et al., 2012.). Although unused for agriculture, boglands have a long cultural connection to the Irish people, being a wilderness both respected and feared as a location for worship rituals (Feehan et al., 2008) and a settlement for Iron-Age humans. The first ever maps of Ireland were commissioned, in order to assess their potential for any commercial purpose, in 1809 during the Napoleonic wars when surveys were drawn to assess the bogland for the cultivation of flax and hemp navy sailcloth.

Despite the failure to cultivate bogs for this or any other viable commercial purpose, peat has been extracted manually for hundreds of years, providing a readily available, seemingly endless and cheap supply of fuel for heat. By the 18th century peat had become Ireland’s main source of fuel (Rynne, 2015) and the distinct aroma of smoke from the hearth of a turf 2 fire is still one of the clearest indicators of rural settlement in Ireland. Turf cutting has a special significance to rural communities with annual cutting become a festival-like event where a working party of men have cut each member’s yearly supply. In his book, Connemara: Listening to the Wind, author Tim Robinson describes an interview with an old farmer, Darby Gannon, talking of these events; “The creek at Carabega was a lively and busy place then, when everybody was bringing home the turf, we used to talk to each other across the creek – there was great cooperation.

The thatching of the house and threshing of the corn were great days the neighbours helped each other, we helped them today they helped us tomorrow” (Robinson, 2007).

Rural life is often too heavily romanticised and the historic reality for many inhabitants has been a hard life of manual labour, poor education and little opportunity, but despite this, there is something unique to these sense of community, of mutually beneficial interdependence, or symbiosis with the landscape, in the rural condition that deserves respect and admiration, offering lessons in collaboration for urban residents whose importance is only now being given more serious consideration (REF BIG SOCIETY).

1 2

Peat tends to be 90% water by mass and 300% by volume.

Turf is the colloquial name given to sod peat.

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By the end of the 19th century, a fuel crisis combined with competition from cheap and readily available supplies of British coal, led to efforts to improve the harvesting and preparation of peat for energy on an industrial level (Smout, 2011) through establishing Bord Na Mona PLC in 1946 3 which acquired over 80,000 hectares of bog (IPCC, 2014) reaching the peak of its peat-burning operations with nine power plants across the country using 6 million tons of peat per year. Such was the understanding of burning fossil fuels in the mid-20th century that burning peat was actually seen as sustainable management, providing energy security and employment for rural areas. Ireland has one of the highest concentrations of boglands in the world, once estimated to cover approximately 1,466,469ha - 1/5th of the land surface of the country (Connolly & Holden, 2009) now less than 20% of this resource remains in an untouched state 4. The evolution of land-use systems such as agriculture and peat extraction have fundamentally altered Ireland’s physical landscape but whereas the exploitation of farmland has afforded time for it to recover, the process of extracting peat has created a new land typology, the ‘industrial cutaway peatlands’.

Bord na Mona currently have three operational peat-burning plants using an annual total of 3 million tonnes of peat, all of which comes from milling the bogland through a process akin to ploughing, that results in linear strips of thin, dried-out topsoil typically 15m wide and 5m deep with further 1-2m deep drains flanking each strip. Across the country what was once a landscape of mosses, plants and shallow pools has now become a landscape of literal scars across the country. Not only does this extraction cause visual pollution, the burning of the peat releases more CO2 than coal while the draining required lowers the natural water table, exposing the soil to aerobic decomposition further releasing large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere 5 . Environmental assessment reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have concluded that global warming is undeniable and the human contribution of fossil fuels is a significant cause (Rajendra K et al, 2014).

In 2011 the International Energy Agency warned that the world is heading for irreversible climate change if carbon emissions are not quickly and significantly reduced6. Boglands cover only 3% of the earths land area but their active growth absorbs vast quantities of these harmful greenhouse

3 4 5 6

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Initially set up as the turf development board in 1934.

Only 10% of raised bogs and 28% of blanket bogs remain.

The top 1m of peat contains as much as 20,00kg nitrogen, 10,000kg sulphur, 500kg phosphorous and 500,000kg of Carbon.

For the world to stay below the safe level of 2C of warming then emissions must be held to no more than 450 parts per million of CO² in the atmosphere, current levels are 435ppm dangerously close to irreversible change.

Lough Rea Power station, one of Bord na Mona’s three remaining operational plants.

Abandoned vehicles on one of the now decommissioned bogs near Lough Rea. The drains cut into the bog and surface damage visible.

gases from the atmosphere storing between 274 and 550 billion tonnes of atmospheric carbon, over three times the amount stored in tropical rainforests (Parish et al., 2007. In just a few short decades the human process of drainage and excavation have transformed boglands from one of the world’s greatest carbon sinks to one of its most dangerous carbon sources (Holden, 2004).

Map of Galway region showing the areas of bog granted status as special areas of conservation (SAC).

Under the EU’s 2020 rules 7 , Ireland has targeted a reduction in CO² emissions of 2.6 million tonnes by 2020. In order to achieve this target Bord na Mona have committed to ending the production of energy from 8peat by 2030 replacing it instead with renewable sources, however the issue of bogs as carbon sources has not been addressed.

The first effort to reduce bogland damage took place in response to the 9 Berne Convention through the 1992 EU Habitats Directive, requiring member states to complete a process of formally designating the best remaining examples of rare and endangered habitats as ‘Special Areas of Conservation’ (SAC). Under the directive, 203,582ha of Ireland’s bogs were designated SAC (NPS, 2014) conferring on them a protected status prohibiting any form of peat extraction. As a result of shifting attitudes to energy production and evidence of the negative long term effects of peat extraction has become undeniable Born na Mona has adopted a policy of, “fully recognizing and accepting the need to preserve representative examples of different bog types, as well as areas of special natural beauty and significance”, announcing that they would be developing no new bog areas for peat production. At the same time the EU Wise Use of Mires and Peatlands document has highlighted the best methods for restoring damaged bogland; ‘peatland water levels should be restored to as close to the natural reference conditions as possible’, the aim being to ‘return degraded peatlands to conditions in which ecosystem functions are as close as possible to natural conditions within the constraints of practicality and at reasonable cost’. In other words re-flooding industrial cutaway peatlands is the first step to bog recovery and would immediately end their carbon emissions (Joosten & Clarke, 2002) yet only a fraction of such restoration work has taken place in Ireland.

7 8 9

Reduce GHG emissions by at least 20% compared to 1990 levels under decision No. 406/2009/EC for years 2013-2020.

Aim to reduce C02 emissions from 0.83 tCO2/MWh to 0.47 tC02/MWh by 2015 and then 0.25 tC02/MWh by 2020.

Refers to the 1982 Bern Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats.

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Youth migration and the difficulties facing rural settlements William Morris’ classic socialist utopian work ‘News from Nowhere’, describes a future where the city has ceased to exist and the country is instead a garden where nature, having re-established itself in all aspects of our everyday lives permeates through our environment. His writing was a reaction to industrialisation and an attempt to satisfy the human longing for carefree happiness promised by his entirely unrealistic perspective on the advantages of rural life in the middle ages. This is seemingly at odds with the Bog Lands Data Centre project which has directly depended on industrialisation and the development of its process and technologies in order to exist however, the intention of the design is to rethink infrastructure and propose a type of industrialisation that over its lifetime cycle, relates nature to industry symbiotically, avoiding the fears inherent in Morris’ work. As we race past the year in which Morris envisaged his idyllic dream, his imagined reality couldn’t be further from the truth. In 2007 for the first time in the history of the human race, urban overtook rural areas as the primary location of the world’s population, with over 50% of people living in cities, expected to rise to 66% by 2050 (DESA, 2014). There are many reasons this has occurred, cities have greater access to infrastructure, employment, health care and entertainment while their high density fabric allowed for more efficient and cost effective infrastructure attracting greater outside investment. In terms of human organization, as a location that attracts the brightest and the best of talents and offers them the chance to make the most of themselves, cities have never been surpassed (Burdett, 2008).

The global phenomenon of rural migration has had a significant impact on Ireland where the emigration rate is the highest of any country in the European Union and rural populations have fallen from over 50% in the 1960s to 36.8% in 2015. This is a particularly severe problem for Ireland’s most remote rural communities from which the majority of youth emigrant’s stem10. The long term decline of farming, agriculture and construction sectors have seen a steep decrease in traditional rural employment, further compounded by the 2008 global economic crash, which hit the rural economy significantly harder than urban areas, increasing unemployment for under 25s to 28%, double the national average, while 69% of those unemployed live in rural areas (CEDRA, 2013). Recent cuts to government grants for third-level education and the halving of unemployment payments for the under 25s has resulted in 10 9%

of the most remote rural areas have accounted for over 30% of the total population loss between 1991-2011.

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Left The predominantly rural Galway region has a significantly lower population density dropping to 19 people to square kilometre in some areas.

Right Population change in the Galway region on the West coast of Ireland has been significantly larger than the urban centres signifying the high levels of migration.

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education no longer being a viable alternative to emigration (Fleming, 2013) and many of the remaining youth population feel the need to emigrate in the immediate future11. With 300,000 people emigrating from Ireland since 2009, 43% of whom were between the ages of 15 – 24, and holding third tier university level qualifications (McAleer, 2013), the need for intervention is clear, as without action the country is facing a long term skills shortage and fewer tax payers that will create financial pressure on the pension system of an increasingly alienated older population, risking a loss of social cohesion.

County Galway on Ireland’s west coast, historically the heartland of a strong agricultural economy, has been hit hardest by the effects of rural youth migration, stagnant economic growth and the emptying of rural settlements as inhabitants search for opportunities in urban centres or even other countries (Toulet, et al., 2014). The negative effect of urban migration on the fabric of rural settlements is evident in towns like Gort, Kinvarra and Adrahan where increasing unemployment from 4%-14% accounted for a loss of 1/6th of their populations from 2006-2011 the highest of any towns in Ireland. With this high unemployment, roughly 1/3rd of homes unoccupied and a large number of business premises lying empty, many rural towns in Galway are increasingly presenting a downcast and hopeless atmosphere, compounded by the stripping back of important services such as schools and hospitals, offering little incentive for young families to settle there (Toulet, et al., 2014).

Gort town plan highlighting the abandoned homes and businesses.

In order to ‘ensure a sustainable development future’ for rural areas a Commission for the Economic Development of Rural Areas (CEDRA) was set up by the Irish government in 2012, undertaking a massive public consultation involving forums and workshops with every Irish county to discuss local views and community issues. CEDRA released a report assessing the development of rural areas up to 2025 which highlights the need to ‘capitalise on the resources; physical, cultural and social of rural areas’ and ‘provide on the ground support for rural communities’ in order to ‘become a dynamic, adaptable and outward looking multi-sectoral economy’.

In an interview with Cathal O’Donaghue, the Head of the Secretariat of the CEDRA report, he explained some of the key findings; “There are much larger levels of unemployment in rural locations through low population density, lower education rates and a dependence on declining employment sectors. To encourage and support job growth, physical access Facade study of Gort’s abandoned properties. to markets, services and suppliers is critical, a challenge for rural areas that 11 1 National

Youth Council of Ireland – Time to Go report found 70% of 15-29 year olds currently living in Ireland feel the need to emigrate by 2016.

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has resulted in industry clustering in cities closer to transport and market hubs, but it’s not a question of more funding, simply better organisation and distribution of currently un-associated industries�.

The following chapters investigate existing methods for supporting growth in rural Ireland and how these might influence localised, incremental changes to youth migration and the damaged countryside. It examines the importance of rural Ireland’s landscape as a resource and traditions of interdependence, combining these with industry and investment that, only due to a lack of organisation or imagination has so far been focused on the urban realm.

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Infrastructure that does not cost the earth “It’s just so clear here, the clarity of the air and the simplicity that comes from stripping away city life has made me figure out the type of work I need to make” (Student interview, Burren College of Art, 2015)

This chapter investigates methods that support the growth of rural Ireland, including tourism, creative industries and the digital economy, how these have succeeded and what more needs to be done to continue their growth. It looks at a new form of infrastructure intrinsically tied to the promotion of the digital economy, computer data centres, and how these might sit within the context of Ireland to develop in harmony with the rural condition helping alleviate the pressures and problems it faces.

Methods for rural recovery and growth Ireland’s traditional employment sectors of farming, agriculture and construction have been steadily falling since the end of the Second World War when farming accounted for 40% of the total rural adult working population. In 1991, there were almost 170,600 farms in Ireland but by the year 2000 this number had fallen by 17% to just over 141,527 and at the time of the last census in 2010 this number had dropped again to 139,829. The negative effects of this long term decline of traditional employment was brought sharply into focus with the economic crash of 2008 which led to unemployment in rural areas increasing severely by an average of 192% compared to an increase of 114% in urban areas between 2008-2011 (CEDRA, 2013). A lack of employment opportunities was the primary factor responsible for youth migration and, in an effort to combat this the CEDRA report sought to analyse and highlight employment areas which could fit harmoniously with rural Ireland by taking advantage of its unique condition to support new long-term employment growth.

Tourism is one of Irelands most important and successful sectors with the CEDRA report highlighting that; “the development of such assets

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Installation by Ruaille Buaille at the Lough Boora sculpture in the parklands have greatly increased tourist number to the region.

Morphosis’ controversial competition winning entry for a new 52 storey skyscraper hotel in Vals, Switzerland.

for rural recreation purposes would allow for the delivery of tourism and recreation infrastructure providing a stimulus to many local areas affected by unemployment” (CEDRA, 2013). Projects such as the Great Western Greenway, a 42km walking and cycling trail created on the route of an old and now disused railway line, a short distance from Galway, has supported thirty seven new jobs in the leisure, accommodation and catering industries by utilising Ireland’s natural resources and picturesque rural landscape. Ireland’s boglands have also undergone successful regeneration projects such as The Boora Bog complex in Co. Offaly, one of the oldest areas of commercial production with over 3000 hectares damaged through sod peat production from 1950 - 1980. Representatives from Bord Na Mona and local community group Kilcormac development association, created an ‘integrated land use plan’ including development of wildlife habitats and outdoor facilities to enhance the quality of life for the surrounding communities while attracting new visitors and tourists.

The bog was leased to the development group, who took on regeneration responsibilities, blocking drains, re-flooding the bog and creating a new visitors centre. The initial success of the scheme led to the creation of the Sculpture in the Parklands project, set up in 2002 by sculptor Kevin O’Dwyer in partnership with Bord Na Mona and the Arts Council of Ireland. The project utilises recycled Bord na Mona workshop materials to create artwork displayed over 30km of short and long range walking routes and has gained recognition as one of the top 100 outdoor sculpture parks in the world. It attracts an estimated 35,000 - 40,000 people each year. supporting the economy of the local region (Egan, 2015).

Exceptional architecture can also act to directly aid rural regeneration, as in the case of Peter Zumthors’ Therme Vals baths in the alpine village of Vals, Switzerland. The village’s inhabitants, less than one thousand in total, concerned over local population decline and the region’s future economic prospects acted to form a collective group purchasing a bankrupt hotel that had occupied the site since the 1960s. They commissioned a new building to act as a catalyst for change. The building was very successful, increasing the numbers of tourists and accounting for 2/3 of the local economy (14).

The success of Vals was not simply due to a single piece of exceptional architecture as the area’s stunning natural scenery, hot springs resources and long standing culture of spas, all contribute to the success, but by categorising boglands as a comparable cultural resources and transforming their degraded edges through inventive architecture, the opportunity exists for parts of Ireland to be transformed into unique tourist attractions. However, successful regeneration that relies on tourism can be a double edged sword.

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In the case of Zumthor’s baths, in 2012 the commune of residents who owned the complex, worried about the long term financial pressure of running the spa, decided to sell. Purchased by businessman Remo Stoffel who sought to capitalise on the building’s prestige, the village is now in the midst of a complex legal battle after his commissioning of a controversial new 53,000sqft mirrored skyscraper described as “a gigantic mirror-clad middle finger aimed at the region” (12). Relying on tourism should not be the only method of achieving rural regeneration.

While traditional employment sectors have declined in rural areas, Ireland’s creative economy grew twice as fast as the service industry and four times as fast as manufacturing from 1995-2005 (CEDRA, 2013).

The creative economy is an industry focusing on high skill jobs involving intellectual labour that can be defined as the cycle of creation, production and commercialisation of products and services that use knowledge and intellectual capital as primary inputs. Over 1 million people work in the services sector in Ireland with creative industries employing over 100,000 people representing over 50% of total employment with internet and software industries experiencing the highest financial turnover and active recruitment numbers of any industries in rural regions (Fitzgerald, 2008).

Creative industries are a critical growth centre for rural Ireland, with 17,000 potential jobs forecast in the Galway region alone. Significantly the CEDRA report highlighted economic development that should; ‘focus on this sector with high potential to support rural economic development in the future’ (CEDRA, 2013).

Signposts at Monivea – the isolated nature of rural business results in a confusing and comical advertising system.

What other factors make a rural location attractive? Rural life may be unable to offer the same variety of employment opportunities as cities make possible, but the slow pace, remoteness, landscape beauty and changing light it boasts create an environment and quality of life unmatched in the urban realm, providing the main motivation for creative industries wanting to locate there (WDC, 2009). Successful educational institutes in the creative arts such as the Burren College of Art have already chosen such a location. Both its students and current president attribute the driving force behind the continual success of the college to the peace, remoteness and beauty of the landscape it is situated in; “it’s just so clear here, the clarity of the air and the simplicity that comes from stripping away city life has made me figure out the type of work I need to make” (Hawkes-Green, 2015). Not only is the rural condition a favourable location for creative industries, research has shown that people

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born in rural areas have a higher life expectancy than those born in urban areas12, while stress, the potential for cancers, coronary heart disease and stroke is also lower. Education in rural areas, with increased access to nature has reported increased levels in attaining knowledge, understanding and social skills. In his work, The Good City, Ash Amin describes cities; “As geographical entities, cities are hardly discernible places with distinct identities, they have become an endless urban sprawl” and the reality for the vast majority of people living in cities is a polluted, unhealthy and alienating place of low-wage work where those at the bottom of the social ladder suffer poor living conditions producing many adverse impacts that have a direct effect on their quality of life13.

What deficiencies is it necessary to address in order to support the growth of the rural economy? Businesses operate in relative isolation in the looser less densely occupied environment of rural areas. While creative industries have been taking advantage of the benefits of rural locations the biggest barrier they face is a lack of broadband infrastructure, and support for marketing and finance. Enterprise Ireland – a state owned development agency - and The Western Development Commission (WDC) - a statutory body set up in 1997 - are the two actors primarily responsible for promoting social and economic development in the rural western regions of Ireland, offering business support, promotion and direct funding for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which form the majority of rural businesses. They are aware that a lack of high quality, low cast workplace developments that are tailored to attract creative people are a constraint to creative ambition (WDC, 2009) and, more importantly, rural broadband is lagging far behind in providing infrastructure for the areas which need it most. Over 70% of Irish exports are predicted to be trading in services by 2025 and rural broadband is essential to their continued delivery (CEDRA, 2013). A specific recommendation from the CEDRA report was the growth of the knowledge economy and online trade in allowing rural areas to overcome challenges through access to high quality and low cost internet connectivity (CEDRA, 2013); “In Ireland 92% of rural enterprises are small, medium and micro14 but 91% of these have closed due to the collapse in domestic demand. Ireland is a small open economy that relies heavily on exports as a driver of economic growth. The inability to access high capacity, cost effective internet services is one of the key issues to emerge from the recent consultation process on the rural economy and significant state investment is needed to ensure delivery 14 Defined

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as having fewer than 250, 50 and 10 employees respectively.

to areas outside the principle urban zones and critically at a competitive price” (O’Donaghue, 2015).

Ireland’s National Broadband Plan (NBP) is a government policy aiming to delivery high speed internet to every citizen and business in Ireland.

The EU Digital Agenda for Europe envisages that by 2020 all EU citizens will have access to speeds of at least 30Mbps but in 2016 Ireland’s NBP indicates that only 70% of addresses will have access by 2020 leaving roughly 800,000 addresses 15 without a broadband strategy. A cost benefit analysis carried out to assess the return over the lifetime of state intervention concluded the benefits outweigh the costs in a number of key areas including, ‘savings from remote working’, ‘increased productivity from working from home’, ‘access to international markets for SMEs’ and ‘enabling the formation of new enterprises which would previously have been restricted’ (DCENR, 2015). Such analysis lies behind the proposal that a relatively new type of digital infrastructure, the data centre, if located appropriately, could be utilised to speed up the rollout of fast and reliable internet provision to rural areas by helping lower the costs involved.

Data centre infrastructure and its possibilities within Ireland Developed in the 1990s when the dot-com bubble vastly increased demand for fast and continuous internet connectivity, data centres run all digital information powering the majority of government, businesses and social functions. They are the power plants of the digital age. Typically large halls not much more than secure sheds, they operate on scales existing anywhere between 100,000 and 1 million square feet filled with row upon row of computer processing equipment. The majority are based in urban environments, in closer proximity to the majority of current businesses in an effort to reduce latency, the time delay in the transference of information across any digital system. The security of the information they possess is paramount to the data centre industry and has resulted in an architectural form of anonymous large scale warehouses, placed on the outskirts of cities in industrial sites. Almost entirely invisible to public perception, they are fenced off from the surrounding city fabric, making no attempt to engaged with or improve the public realm.

Constructing data centres in Dublin initially was a sensible move designed to reduce latency in the most cost effective way, installing them directly into a city’s exiting service network, while maintain close proximity to 15 Including

62,226 SMEs, primarily micro and 63,440 non-farm businesses.

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urban based businesses. Today however, improved fibre optic cables have substantially increase network speeds to the point that locating data centres closer to urban areas and businesses offers little noticeable benefit.

This is not true of rural areas which still rely on copper telephone wires to transmit broadband internet from local exchanges providing a slow and inefficient system. The problem of installing fast broadband to rural areas mainly comes down to cost, as it is much more expensive to lay the fibre-optic cables required to individual homes and small communities.

Locating data centres rurally would help alleviate this problem, acting as a fibre optic hubs the laying of cables to rural areas would become a viable and cost effective option. A report by consultants Callahgan Engineering concluded that a sharp rise in the number of data centres by 2020 will lead to a rise in demand for electricity, and if data storage is based solely in Dublin a saturation point will be reached. Instead data-centre design should look to spread through the country to rural areas (Taylor, 2015) and this spreading of resources is also something Cathal O’Donaghue agrees with;

Network cabinets, designed as small scale ‘hubs’ to supply high speed broadband are insufficient at maintain fast speeds across large distances and suffer from frequent user overload at peak times.

“Recent FDI has gone to urban areas, however potential exists for smaller scale or niche inward investment outside of larger centres, and its imperative Enterprise Ireland and the IDA renew their focus on attracting more investment into rural areas. This should be done through the stronger collaboration between local and regional bodies such as WDC and Galway County Council”.

Spreading data-centres through the country to rural areas should both alleviate the pressure building on Dublin to accommodate them, while sensibly taking advantage of the cooler Irish rural climate and wet bogland sites in providing the considerable cooling this building type requires, using a passive rather than an energy-hungry approach.

Major operational bases have been established in Ireland by a number of high profile technology companies such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook as regards locating office headquarters, research institutes and data centres in Dublin which has seen an explosion of data centre growth. Microsoft developed a 500,000sqft facility at grange castle near Clondlkin in 2009 and in 2011 Amazon purchased a former Tesco warehouse in Walkinstown to repurpose into a 240,000sqft data centre.

In 2012 Google redeveloped a warehouse in west Dublin, announcing a second €150million data centre in Dublin in 2014. With a now stable

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Microsoft’s central Dublin data centre.

economy, a skilled and experienced workforce and a 12.5% headline corporation tax rate, the lowest in the EU, Ireland has positioned itself as a market leader in data centre infrastructure attracting 20 data centres across the country. With a report by CISCO calculating that mobile data flow will increase 11 fold by 2018, doubling cloud-computing spending to nearly $300 billion (O’Dwyer, 2015), data centre infrastructure has been specifically targeted by the Irish Government’s Action Plan for jobs as a significant area for growth.

Plan and visual of Apple’s proposed eight phase Athenry data centre.

Yahoo Data Centre, Texas.

Designed to be primarily cost effective, existing data centre infrastructure offers little in the way of aesthetic appeal.

Proof of the viability of rural data centre infrastructure came in February 2015 when Apple Incorporated announced it was investing €850 million in a 166,000sqm data centre proposed for Derrydonnell Forest, 44 acres of greenfield site on the outskirts of Athenry in Galway, the first data centre in Ireland to be located outside of a major urban area. Its close proximity to the M6 motorway, along which internet fibre optic cables are laid, gives it easy access to connect into the existing broadband network.

Designed to be built in eight phases, each phase consists of a 24,500sqm data centre shed 331m long, 75m wide and 51m high containing the computer servers, electrical power supplies, mechanical cooling systems and associated offices, maintenance and monitoring spaces. As with its urban counterparts no effort has been made by Apple’s proposed design to engage aesthetically with the public or the surrounding rural landscape and instead a low cost and easy to construct insulated metal panel and louvre system creates the façade. The choice of Derrydonnell Forest as the site has largely been influenced by the trees screening the data centre buildings in an effort to hide and disguise them.

Reaction to the proposal from local residents has been mixed. Many are pleased at the prospect of 300 jobs which will be provided through the data centre’s construction and operation while many local businesses favour the nationwide attention and prestige that comes with such a large project, hoping it will increase investment to the area. However concerns over energy, impact of noise and damage to wildlife habitats and picturesque greenfield land has led to the ‘Athenry Revival Group’ community organisation lodging an official challenge to the project, despite Apple’s promise to provide facilities for the local community including outdoor education spaces for local schools, public walking trails and the intention to to power the data centre with 100% renewable energy. As things stand 16 the Galway county council planning office granted conditional permission for the first phase of the project to begin in 2016 providing twelve construction conditions were met (RTE, 2015).

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12 conditions include archaeological survey, correct disposal of waste water, sustainable road management restricting times in which works can be carried out and limitations on vehicle

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Project management and resource considerations Deciding that bogs are a resource that should not be exploited for energy but instead preserved and restored is not without its difficulties. These landscapes occupy a difficult territory within rural society, they have been a perennial resources exploited for financial gain and gaining support for the cessation of turf cutting activities, and instead a commitment to their restoration will require engagement from the project team with the community. This is a task in which the architect should take a leading responsibility, involving the client and project team in discussion meetings, with local residents, explaining the benefits, answering any questions and discussing the wider opportunities the project will bring to the community’s inhabitants. With the successful support of the local community, planning issues that will arise, as evident from the conditional planning permission attained by Apple’s existing proposal, will need the architect’s input and guidance.

Requiring uninterrupted electrical supplies, the energy resources for data center operation are substantial - the first stage of Apple’s Athenry scheme alone will use 20 megawatts per hour 17. This vast energy use is at odds with Ireland’s green economy targets which are, to achieve 20% energy savings by 2020 with a 33% energy efficiency improvement in the public sector, to be driven by Green Public Procurement (GPP) (EPA, 2014). GPP is a core strand of the green economy driving sustainability, promoting resource efficiency and progressing circular economy ambitions18, requiring buyers and suppliers to consider not just up-front costs but the total economic and environmental costs from cradle to grave. Apple’s current proposal involves no sustainable building methods or renewable energy generation on site, instead the idea is to offset its energy use against renewable sources purchased from the national grid. Surely data infrastructure should not persist with existing models but instead look towards long term solutions that follow green economy targets.

Currently 40% of all energy consumed by data centres is wasted as excess heat, and unless the infrastructure design can be made more energy efficient, global carbon emissions from data centres will increase 4 times by 2020 (Glinkowski, 2013). Taking advantage of this fact, co-locating data-centres and small-scale local business premises has the potential to allow the latter to exploit the waste heat produced by the former, lowering overall running costs and reducing carbon emissions. Few data centres in the world utilise this opportunity but new projects such as the 3,400m², 6.4 megawatt Condorcet data centre by Telecity in Paris utilises waste heat for an on-site climate At full capacity the proposed Apple data center will require 358 megawatts of energy, the equivalent of 230,000 homes.

18 A circular economy model aims to keep resources in use for as long as possible, recovering and regenerating in place of the tradition linear model of make, use, dispose.

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change arboretum while excess heat from the $180million, 19,000m² Telehouse data centre in London’s docklands produces 9 megawatts of power in a district heat network powering homes in the local community, moreover Academic has installed a 2 megawatt centre under Uspenski Cathedral in Helsinki, providing enough heating for 500 homes.

Distribution of heat from modern heat recovery systems uses a network of pre-insulated pipes that can be buried with other services cheaply and requiring no maintenance. Heat exchangers in the Helsinki data centre transfer waste heat from the servers to the district heating system pipes which run it to community sub stations and into heat interface units in individual family homes, effectively giving the same control as a boiler, and very large quantities of heat can be transmitted very long distances without significant losses, suggesting that transferring of heat to rural homes and settlements near Monivea bog is easily achievable (Andrews, et al., 2012).

Ireland’s national policy since the completion of its bailout programme in 2014 that marked the end to austerity measures enforced by the loan conditions from the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and the IMF, has given emphasis to the renewable and green sectors which are seen as a good opportunity for reliable and stable growth. Developing the Green Economy In Ireland - a report published by the Department for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources identified key strengths in supporting technology and infrastructure projects through an ‘indigenous R&D base’, ‘significant investments in improving environmental performance and creating infrastructure to support green enterprises’ and ‘strong sectors which help attract foreign-owned companies’ (DETE, 2009).

By following a model of Green Infrastructure (GI) the principle of protecting and enhancing nature is integrated into spatial planning and territorial development. GI is specifically identified as an investment priority under The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) - a co-ordinated body under the European Structural and Investment Fund (ESIF) and the EU’s main investment policy tool19to support job creation, economic growth and sustainable development. GI receives support to promote new materials and building methods including the development of green roofs and walls to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

However GI projects are inherently risky, particularly in the early project stages, and financial instruments need to reduce the risk by utilising 19

The ESIF has an operational budget of €453 billion for 2014-2020

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multi-partner deals involving public and private funding (CEP, 2013). The Boglands data center project offers the potential to develop a new form of data center design that can combine sustainable energy targets with natural habitat rehabilitation, acting to generate energy while also replenishing land that has been drastically altered by intensive industrial use.

The challenge is to find an architecture that supports the therapeutic symbiosis of the bog, data centre and start-up workplace. This would seem to be a matter of enabling these activities and this technology, to take place side-by-side, while giving careful consideration to the ultimate impact of such a reconfiguration on the wider landscape. The following chapter examines the potential architectural principles that may inform the design of such a data-centre in the bog.

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Project Design and Procurement

This chapter investigates in detail the project site, its condition and the required bog restoration measures, while analysing the unique aspects of bog sites, that enable their landscapes to aid digital infrastructure provision through natural cooling energy savings and on site energy generation, it explores how these measures could be incorporated successfully by synergising the landscape and the built form. It also seeks to understand the best procurement routes and funding options available to realise the project, and how practical aspects of the scheme might be addressed and how these aspects could potentially have an influence over the architecture of the project.

Monivea site description and existing conditions

Photo plan of Monivea bog – the visible linear strips are the areas of industrial degraded bog which have been destroyed from years of fuel extraction.

Monivea bog, located outside the small village of Monivea in county Galway is a medium sized raised bog located 28km north east of Galway City with a total area of 286.68 hectares, comprised of 7.03 hectares of active raised bog, 125.14 hectares degraded raised bog still capable of natural regeneration and 154.51 hectares of industrial cutaway peatlands (NPWS, 2013). Despite peat extraction taking place both privately and commercially it was made an SAC while classified as still actively peatforming and is one of the best remaining examples of active bog on the west coast. Surveys conducted into its potential regeneration have concluded that with hydrology repair and appropriate rehabilitation management the degraded area can become actively forming within 30 years (NPWS, 2015). While the SAC status would normally prevent any form of construction work on the bog the degraded industrial area of brownfield land has no rehabilitation plan and has no conservation value, therefore it is viable to construct upon the degraded portion of the site, leaving the active area untouched, if that construction work contributes to the rehabilitation of the degraded land that would otherwise be left damaged.

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The very first Peatland conservation plan was set out by the Dutch Government, after a history of mechanised peat cutting similar to Ireland resulted in the loss of large quantities of peatland. Following these principles bogland restoration falls principally to Bord na Mona the semi-state owned energy company - and Coillte – The Irish Forestry Board, which is both a private limited company and public undertaking.

Through peat extraction and afforestation both companies have caused damage to nearly 400,000ha of boglands20. As a result of shifting attitudes to energy production and evidence of the negative long term effects of afforestation, rehabilitation work has been carried out on over 12,000ha of degraded bogs 21 owned by both companies. On Monivea bog some restoration work has already been carried out by Coillte, through the removal of a plantation of pine trees and naturally regenerating conifers, and the installation of peat dams to restore water tables to the northern edge. However the restoration area is bounded to the south by a deep drain which cannot yet be blocked due to private ownership under the leadership of Ardraigue, Barroughter & Clonmoylan Bogs Action Group, a collective of local peat cutters that have illegally continued cutting. In order to regain this land a compulsory purchase order from the Irish government directly or on behalf of a private party would first have to take place22.

Peatland restoration on active bogland is a straightforward process beginning with the immediate ceasing of all cutting and allowing the rewetting of the landscape to re-establish high water tables to support the recolonization of important peat forming species such as sphagnum moss. Sphagnum is essential for peat growth, and water tables must be maintained at a high level without fluctuation to maintain ideal growth conditions. On the active portion of Monivea bog, drains that have been created to dry out the surface ready for cutting must first be blocked using peat plugs, polythene membranes or metal sheets. Filling the boundary drains prevents further loss of water and allows the re-wetting of the landscape naturally through surface ground water swell and rainfall. The re-colonization of important peat forming species will happen gradually, existing mosses in the active region will grow and spread outwards while new areas will form through airborne seeding. While industrial cutaway peatlands have been severely damaged ecologically, the 125.14ha degraded peat area balances interdependencies between water, plants and peat, making them extremely sensitive ecological landscapes, vulnerable to a wide range of disturbances. Existing regeneration precedents with 20 Bord

na Mona own over 80,000ha of while Coillte own 440,000ha of forest land, 300,000ha of which is afforested peatland.

21 Bord Na Mona have rewetted 11,000ha (Wilson, et al., 2012.), Coillte have restored 1212ha.

22 A Compulsory purchaser order would follow the General Compulsory Acquisition Power akin to the Turf Development Act in 1946 (Galligan, et al., 2013).

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Typical drain blocks made from corrugated plastic or metal sheets.

building elements are generally limited to small scale wooden walkways resting on the bog surface, or tourist amenities placed around the bog edge where soil moisture content is lower and therefore more stable.

The Boora Bog visitors centre is a rarer example of construction taking place directly on the bog surface, deliberately sacrificing part of the bog for the concrete pile foundations and base slab required to form a stable construction surface. Simply put, building on the active bog surface should not be considered for the data centre project.

Wooden walkway and Boora Bog visitors centre, examples of building projects placed on active bog surface.

Apple’s Athenry data centre construction section.

Restoration of the industrial degraded area of Monivea bog is not as straightforward, but could happen in a number of ways. Firstly, the east of the site where the majority of the damage has occurred, is bordered by the river Tyaquin and drains running perpendicular to this river must first be blocked so that a thin layer of surface water can reform on the damaged surface to prevent oxidisation. This newly dampened surface would provide suitable conditions for the reformation of bog plants. However this will not lead to the long term reforming of new peat material. To recreate the conditions for the formation of new active raised bogs requires shallow lakes to encourage reed and sedge growth around the edge condition23.

The existing 3-5m height difference between the industrial cutaway bog and the active bog forms a natural boundary which, if filled with water to the higher level, would create a suitable shallow lake. Not only does this prevent oxidisation of the remaining industrial cutaway bog but the pool of water can providing a source of cooling for the data centre.

Being classified as brownfield land, the 154.51 hectare industrial cutaway portion of the site would be suitable for construction projects and the limestone bedrock just below the subsoil surface provides solid ground for foundations. However in following the principles of GPP the financial and environmental costs must be considered not just up-front, but across the total economic and environmental costs from cradle to grave. Apple’s Athenry proposal is constructed atop 750mm concrete trench foundations with a 500mm concrete base slab which would be a cost effective method of construction but conflicts with the restoration methods by causing permanent damage to the surface of the bog, effectively ending any chance of it returning to active peat formation. Instead of traditional construction techniques, the artificially created lakes provide an opportunity for a new type of floating data centre infrastructure that could avoid any permanent damage to the landscape. Data centre security is paramount, with increased sensitivity around data leaks, and risks from 23

Peat accumulates at a rate of roughly 0.5-1mm/year (Clymo, 1992?).

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hacking. Private information needs to remain private. Typically data centres are surrounded by steel security lines, Apple’s Athenry proposal will erect 2.4m steel fences in the forest which has been argued will greatly detract from the amenity value of the public walkway space (Siggins, 2015).

Floating the data centre building provides a novel solution for the security concerns, essentially creating a moat, naturally restricting access without the need for perimeter security fences. Floating the building could utilise methods such as pontoons, large buoyant structures that could be tied together like the floating bridges constructed during the Maha Kumbh Mela Hindu festival in India, when millions of visiting pilgrims gain access to the Sangam River across massive temporary bridges constructed atop 10 x 2.8m hollow iron pontoons. Brockholes visitors centre on the 120ha Lancashire Wildlife Trust wetlands nature reserve, was constructed atop a 65x42m concrete and polystyrene block pontoon floating on the central wetlands lake, and accessible only by walkways that also served to moor the structure in place. The construction process involved preliminary draining of the lake, and cleared of the top layer of silt, effectively recreating the conditions that exist currently on most of the extracted boglands throughout Ireland. The lake was then filled and the pontoon floated naturally to the surface of the water for construction of the buildings to begin.

Due to its proximity to Galway city, Monivea and neighbouring rural settlements such as Athenry, have actually increased in population 24. This however does not suggest they are supporting sustainable growth, instead an influx of inhabitants from other rural areas struggling to find urban employment and unable to afford accommodation there are forced to move to the more affordable nearby rural areas. This inward migration has increased unemployment steadily from 4.8% in 2008 to 14.7% in 2011, with average weekly earnings €699.94 across all sectors of the economy (NCGS, 2006). Monivea falls within the government’s rural broadband plan, is suffering from high youth migration and unemployment but is located next to a SAC bog that has a high chance of regeneration while being in close proximity to the M6 that would connect it to the broadband network, making it an ideal site to trial the bog-lands data centre project.

Benefits of using boglands for data centre design Ireland’s existing data centres are constructed on land that has either been leased long term or bought outright. Avoiding constructing a data centre 24

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Population figures from the 2011 census results.

Steel pontoons used to create floating bridges for the Maha Kumbh Mela festival in Allahabad.

on Apple’s chosen Derrydonnel site will avoid the destruction of an important ecological habitat and community amenity space but there are other reasons that Monivea bog is a better choice of site location.

Both Derrydonnell forest and Monivea bog are state owned areas of land and their viability as use for project sites will be influenced in part by the comparative financial benefits from their sale. Galway is situated in Connaught, the only province where decreases in land rent levels were observed from 2014-2015. The overall average cost for purchasing forestry land was €3,270 per acre25(TEAGASC, 2015) making the 500 acre Derrydonnnel forest worth €1,635,000. Comparing this to the value of bogland is difficult as estimates are more varied. The IPCC sell one acre of conservation bog for €720, though this is essentially a sponsorship of the land, as it cannot be used. In order to meet the SAC 2020 targets The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) introduced a voluntary scheme in 1999 to purchase bogland from private landowners where turbary rights allowed bog cutting to continue, offering €3,500 per ha (€1,416 per acre), which many felt undervalued the land, inaccurately reflecting the annual profits available (CCSN, 2016). Using this lower estimate the value of the 700 acre (check?) Monivea bog would be €1,003,380, significantly cheaper than Apple’s proposed Derrydonnell forest site. It appears that the government stands to make greater profits from the sale of the forest, however Ireland’s national raised bog SAC management plan, responsible for meeting Ireland’s Habitats Directive requirements, has proposed a ten year programme of conservation measures across Ireland’s boglands, costing an estimated €10.8 million to the Irish government. This estimate however excludes the costs of associated public sector work and turfcutter compensation which is likely to push the bill even higher. By factoring bog restoration work into planning policy, these restoration costs could instead be passed to the developers of bogland as a condition of achieving planning permission26. With the cost of restoration work averaging €400 per hectare (Bord na Mona, 2016), the cost savings from a developer restoring Monivea bog would result in a 2% reduction to the overall government restoration bill, and factoring this into the initial cost of the land makes it comparable to the cost of Derrydonnell Forest. If increasing numbers of boglands were used as data centre sites, the total bill of restoration from the Habitats Directive could be met entirely by private companies.

25 26

In comparison, rental rates for agricultural land ranged from €122 - €1135 per acre.

Conditional permission has already been used by Galway county council planning office with the Athenry scheme when it granted conditional permission for the first phase of the project to begin in 2016 on the provision that twelve construction conditions were met, these included an archaeological survey, correct disposal of waste water, sustainable road management, restricting times in which works can be carried out and limitations on vehicle movements on local roads (RTE, 2015).

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Standard data centre design involves an elevated steel floor with concrete filling, on a concrete base, enclosed in a fire resistant masonry wall or drywall and a fire resistant roof. Power supplies are separated in side rooms or on a lower floor from the server racks, which are kept together on a server floor. This ensures a clean, dry and thermally controllable environment in which the servers can achieve optimum performance, essentially becoming a hermetically sealed box they can have no openings to the external environment. Data centres typically utilise mechanically refrigerated air, circulated through the building to maintain a constant temperature which results in buildings that are very energy intensive and creates a huge amount of waste heat. However Ireland’s climate is well suited for cooling, one of the key aspects of data centre design, as the low external air temperature can be utilised to cool the data hall without mechanical assistance.

Natural cooling requires ventilation openings in the walls of the data centre that should be orientated south west to take advantage of the prevailing winds to drive cool air into the data centre server floor. Air particle filters should be installed near the openings and the server floor should ideally be placed at a higher level to allow vertical movement of air through floor grills following Bernouli’s principle of fluid dynamics. Special cooling chimneys can then utilise natural stack ventilation to act as shafts that draw warm air from the lower internal pressure of the building to the higher pressure external air.

Fans could be at the intake and exhaust points to aid cooling when wind or temperature conditions are not ideal. Cooling chimneys constructed could echo traditional duchain towers, conically stacked structures that were used to dry hand-cut turf bricks, and were a feature of traditional rural life through spring and summer. Supported by a steel framed superstructure the ventilation chimneys would be perforated at a high level, achieved through the brick stacking. Factoring GPP and the lifecycle of the building, these chimneys could be constructed not from standard fired clay bricks, but turf bricks from the remaining topsoil of the degraded surface. Compressed into brick shapes they could by mixed with mycelium27, an experimental mushroom root made by Ecovative that has been successfully used in the construction of Hy-Fi, a 40ft tower made from organic bricks by architecture firm The Living. These bricks are naturally bio-degradable and so would be causing no net loss of organic material to the bog. Instead, over their lifetime, they return material borrowed from its surface degrading back into the bog, aiding in its long term restoration. The new 8000m², 16 megawatt Digital Realty data centre in Dublin utilises air handling units to take advantage of Irelands cold climate to passively cool the data centre. Hot air from the data centre is 27

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The mass of interwoven filamentous hyphae that forms especially the vegetative portion of the thallus of a fungus and is often submerged in another body (as of soil or organic matter or the tissues of a host) (Ecovative, 2015).

Chonical Duchain towers, the traditional method of drying hand cut peat bricks

Hy-Fi by architecture firm The Living. A 40ft tower made from mycelium biodegradable bricks

removed from the ceiling and run past cold external air along special heat exchanger units filled with plates which ensures no contamination, this cold air from outside then cools the internal air before it is returned to the data centre. With an energy cost of €0.10/kWh this natural cooling method equates to energy saving of €280,000 per year and projecting these same figures to Apples 200,000m2, 358 megawatt data centre gives it comparable annual energy savings of €7,000,000 from natural ventilation alone. This cool climate however is not unique to Monivea bog, but the flat, open and exposed nature of bog topography makes it much easier to take advantage of south westerly prevailing winds.

Googles Sum Mill liquid heat exchanger units

One unique feature of bogs which can be utilised for even more effective cooling is its wet and waterlogged surface. Water from the surface of the re-flooded bog maintains a constant cool temperature that could be used in a liquid heat exchanger to draw excess heat from the server units, removing the need for refrigerated cooling by instead taking advantage of the surrounding environmental conditions to utilise ‘free cooling’. The water cooling system first takes water from the body of the re-flooded bog via a water intake pipe, the water then passes through a particle filter before 25mm water distribution pipes direct it to the server floor. Each server rack on the floor contains a water handling unit that distributes the heat around the warm servers in a closed system before transferring this now warmed water to the water heat exchangers via a 25mm insulated warm water outlet pipe. Once the heat is extracted in the heat exchanger, the now cooled water originally taken from the bog is mixed with fresh bog water to fully equalise the temperature before being returned. This natural method can reducing data centre energy consumption by as much as 50% compared with conventional air-cooled systems (El-Dessouky , 2000). Liquid cooling from natural water sources has already been utilized on several large data centre projects such as Google’s Summa Mill, which utilises sea water from the bay of Finland for its cooling system, the first of its kind anywhere in the world, and its proximity to the bay was one of the driving factors in Google choosing to locate there.

With the number of data centre server racks globally reaching over 7.7 million in 2016, powering them requires 5,000GW of electricity, a staggering 2% of global energy demand (Brenner, Go, & Buccellato). Ireland’s total data centre capacity is expected to rise from 414 megawatts to 1136 megawatts by 2017 (Callaghan, 2009) requiring new methods of sustainable energy generation to minimise environmental impact. Being unsuitable for tree growth due to 1

We can state as something as an inventory, as an arrangement of parts, as a layout, as a timetable.

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their low nutrient, highly acidic soil, bogs have very little overshadowing risk, making them perfect landscapes for a growing form of energy generation, solar energy farms. Solar farms are arrays of solar panels generally situated on agricultural grazing land, roughly 2m off the ground, and oriented south towards the sun.

They effectively transform areas of land solely used for grazing into land that can also generate electricity supplies directly to the grid. A report by the Irish Solar Energy Agency specifically highlighted, “cutaway bogs that are no longer suitable for peat cutting”, as suitable land on which to roll out large scale solar projects, recommending a fast track planning process to encourage developers (ISEA, 2014). Despite its reputation for rain and dull weather, solar radiation levels in Ireland are 78% of the levels found in Madrid, but being exempt from renewable energy feed-in tariffs28means that solar energy currently accounts for only 0.3% of energy produced in Ireland. With the costs of solar modules falling29, solar is a cheaper source of renewable energy than wind, biomass and hydro, while public support for large scale solar energy farms is at 80% (DECC, 2014).

Irish solar companies such as BNRG Renewables Limited, have already successfully installed a 30 acre 3.6MW solar farm on the Isle of Wight, while The Queen Elizabeth II reservoir in Walton-on-Thames, London is home to Europe’s largest floating solar farm constructed by Lightsource Renewable Energy and comprised of 23,000 solar panels over 57,500sqm with a capacity of 6.3MW, enough energy to power roughly 1,800 homes.

With each square meter of flat roofing space able to yield on average 60w of energy, the total potential of Monivea bogs 150 hectares of industrial cutaway peatlands could yield 90MW, a reduction on Apple’s Athenry data centre energy costs of nearly 25%.

The fan like strips of cutaway landscape provides an opportunity for a very exciting building form which follows this layout, however with very few examples of buildings atop bogs, there is not a common image of the aesthetic of such buildings. Placing a large series of new objects into a landscape that is unused to any structures, will be a challenge to ensure acceptance by the local community. This is particularly true with a building typology which is primarily practical and cost effective, affording little aesthetic value. To ensure the design does not become obtrusive the data center could draw upon the rural vernacular, the most prevalent structures being agricultural sheds. These simple structures constructed from steel frame and forming a large pitched roof are primarily clad in Long term contracts at lower per-kWh prices for renewable energy designed to encourage investment.

29 Solar modules have fallen 42% since 2011 from €0.96/w to €0.56/w.

28

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The simple form of the agricultural shed is synonymous with rural Ireland.

Agricultural sheds on a sunset evening possess an elegant beauty

timber or corrugated metal and are essential for the storage of agricultural livestock, machinery and crops. While predominantly built to be robust and practical, their forms have an elegant simplicity that is instantly recognizable and suitable for the data centers large, open server halls.

Drawing upon this simple vernacular form, a series of large shed spaces could be combined following the fanning plan of Monivea’s damaged industrial strip cuts with one side of the pitched roof would be given over to solar cells, aligned south facing to allow for maximum uninterrupted solar gains, while the other becoming a series of partially submerged living roofs. These living roofs would allow mosses and plants such as eriophorum angustifolium (more commonly known as bog cotton) to gradually spread back onto the industrial cutaway area from the active bog surface. The result would be a series of objects that from one approach would display an unfamiliar metallic and reflective solar roof, but as you moved around the landscape the living roofs would come into view and these structures would appear to fade into the bog itself.

Overleaf Concept image of Cooling chimneys sitting on a re-flooded bog echoing the conical duchain towers of traditional rural Ireland.

Overleaf opposite Concept visual, plan and section of a floating pontoon data centre.

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Bog Land Data Centre procurement and funding Preceding page top Concept image of series of living roof data shed based on the agricultural form.

Preceding page bottom context plan highlighting the bog sites available for data centre projects in comparison to the Derrydonnel forest site chosen by apple

Procurement of the Boglands Data centre would involve cross-over between a wide range of sectors, disciplines and actors, with potential funding therefore being able to be generated from a variety of sources.

Following the ideal of a creative alliance for mutual benefit, a PublicPrivate Partnership (PPP) would guide the project, involving each party contributing by way of a loan, equity, grant or land lease. Depending on their contribution and status – as either a commercial or not-for-profit company- their targets and expected returns would vary. At present peat is harvested under the terms of Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) licences, issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and requires the implementation of a cutaway bog rehabilitation plan following the decommissioning and termination of peat production (Bord Na Mona, 2011). The rehabilitation plan requires that the land be permanently left in an environmentally stable condition and often this means that land can be released on a whole-bog basis. As part of an adapted IPPC licence, it is proposed that provision be made to include the Bogland Data Centre as a target project within the rehabilitation plan. Coillte or Bord na Mona would make available bogland sites in need of restoration - in this case, Monivea Bog, where the first Boglands Data Centre would be located - in exchange for the benefit of increased quantity and speed to rehabilitation efforts.

To suitably finance the Boglands Data Centre the resources and structure available from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) would be appropriate. The ERDF focuses investments on several key areas including innovation research, digital agenda, SMEs and the low carbon economy. It prioritises ‘extending broadband deployment and the rollout of high-speed networks’, ‘developing ICT products and services and e-commerce’ and ‘strengthening ICT applications’. In Ireland the ERDF does not offer direct project funding, instead the managing authority Border, Midland and Western Regional Operational Programme could offer seed finance in the form of fixed rate, long term loans, generated from the ERDF operation budget 30. Another suitable partner and possible source of funding would be ‘InnovFin – EU Finance for Innovators’, a joint initiative launched by the European Investment Bank Group 31 in cooperation with the European Commission (EC) under Horizon 2020.

InnovFin builds on the success of the former Risk-Sharing Finance Facility and consists of a series of integrated and complementary financing tools The ERDF supplied €160,097,179 for 2014-2020 with the Irish Exchequer matching this amount bringing the total operational budget to €320million (European Comission, 2016).

31 Partnership between the European Investment Bank and European Investment Fund.

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and advisory services with a fund that is deployed by eligible local banks or leasing companies guaranteeing between €25,000 and €7,000,000 for research-based and innovative small businesses (European Investment Bank, 2015). As a further source of funding major infrastructure companies such as Apple, Google and Microsoft, who have already invested over €150 million in data centre infrastructure (O’Dwyer, 2015), might invest or donate to benefit from the long term potential in the new data centre infrastructure as well as positive publicity.

While the Regional Development Fund and InnovFin could support finance for the infrastructure, energy and technology aspects of the Bogland Data Centre, the rehabilitation of the bog itself would instead find suitable funding from LIFE, the EU’s financial instrument supporting environmental, nature conservation and climate action projects 32. Currently in its fifth iteration, LIFE offers co-financing for suitable projects at a rate 50% of the total eligible costs, however a rate of up to 75% of the total eligible costs may be granted to nature proposals that focus on conservation actions for sites under the Habitats Directive. The Boglands Data Centre which seeks to restore 286.68ha of degraded and cutaway peat in Monivea bog, an SAC site specifically created under the Habitats Directive, would be eligible for this increased funding rate. Two bog recovery projects led

by Coillte have already received over €3,000,000 in LIFE funding for the removal of afforested areas, blocking of drains and preparation of land for recovery. Further possible funding could also be made available from the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht (DAHG) ‘Restoring Active Raised Bog in Ireland’s SAC Network 2016-2020′ project33, which supports improving the conservation status of Ireland’s active raised bogs SACs (DAHG, 2015). Under the scheme, the loans generated from the ERDF and InnovFin would be used as equity to fund the construction of the data centre. As the land has been leased from Coillte or Bord na Mona – state owned companies - the LIFE funding allows for the restoration work on the bog and community outreach initiatives to make the public aware of the efforts to transform and repair the damaged land.

32 33

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LIFE has €3.4billion available in funding for 2014-2020.

DAHG recently received €5,400,000 funding 75% (€4,056,000) of which was co-funded for the

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Conclusion

The design thesis has explored Ireland’s rural condition and identified two problems associated with its future: the negative impact that rural youth migration will have on the value and diversification of the country’s social fabric; and the damage that has been caused to large portions of bogland, a culturally significant and ecologically vital natural resource the destruction of which has and remains to cause lasting environmental damage. It has shown that, while efforts have been made to tackle both of these problems, unseen opportunity exists to use private investment to help resolve these issues.

After an analysis of these problems the thesis investigated a new form of digital infrastructure, the data centre, and determined its position as a growing resource in Ireland’s future. The thesis hypothesised that boglands, having been damaged by industrial cutaway processes and facing little organisation for co-ordinated after use strategies, were ideal sites for a new form of data centre that can act as a means of affecting change specific to the problems faced by rural communities. The inclusion on the creation of small scale business and creative workspace to combine with these data centres drew on the findings and recommendations

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from the nationwide study conducted by CEDRA namely: providing for the creative economy who value locating to the countryside where the slow pace, remoteness and landscape provide ideal working conditions; and accommodating the growth of internet and software industries that have become the primary recruiters in rural regions. The procurement of such a project would happen by way of a public-private partnership operating under a partnering contract PPC 2000 or JCT Constructing Excellence.

Investment would come from the ERDF by way of the Border, Midland and Western Regional Operational Programme managing authority, as well as InnovFin and the data centre company commissioning the scheme, namely Apple Incorporated.

Tectonically, analysis of the Monivea bog site concluded that the practical aspects of the restoration, sealing existing drains and re-flooding the landscape, provide a unique opportunity for data centre infrastructure to reduce emissions and save financially on operational costs through natural wind and water cooling and heat recovery systems. The bog landscape also supports less intrusive and more aesthetically pleasing solutions to the cpncern of security. The writing of Tim Robinson’s Connemara informed the understanding of the bog as a piece of landscape, offering opportunities for an arrangement of building form unique in the Irish countryside while research into the traditional methods of cutting and drying peat bricks and the unique structural forms they create suggested concepts for the architectural form.

The role of the Architect This thesis has provided a real insight into what the role of the architect can be and how it could evolve in the future. The traditional view of the architect as a sole practitioner acting alone to solve design problems has given way to the reality of today, a multi-disciplinary team working together to orchestrate a project. While this method of working has existed for some time, working on the thesis and time spent researching in the field has highlighted the role of the architect in discovering new possibilities that haven’t been considered or thought of before. Corporate companies, developers, engineering firms, councils and local residents are all involved in the scheme to some degree but the training of the architect puts them in a position to challenge convention, to attempt to achieve the best possible result for all parties involved, seeing opportunities that others may be blinded by thought their business or personal bias. Indeed

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architects have a responsibility to do so. This is not meant to suggest the architect as a sole crusader without personal bias, more that in writing this thesis it became very clear that collaboration is critical and the most useful information has frequently come from discussions with those individuals not immediately associated with architectural projects; bog ecologists, Bord na Mona and restoration volunteers, sources which may be traditionally overlooked, or brought in at the last minute to lend weight to a planning application.

This is especially relevant today where the self-generation projects has become more prevalent and examples such as architecture collective Assemble, or the ‘manifesto’ of Roger Zogolovitch in his book Shouldn’t we all be developers have already show that great success can be achieved by taking matters into our own hands. In the future the architect may automatically be responsible for the identification of potential sites, clients and stakeholders while also working to secure funding from a wider pool of available resources. The writing of this thesis and the work conducted on the MPhil degree have shown that research enables the putting forward of new ideas no matter how different or radical they me seem to existing conventions, identifying opportunities that others may not. It’s this ability that allows an ignored industrial bog to be instead seen as a potential resource for a new and expanding piece of digital infrastructure.

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Glossary

SAC - Special Area of Conservation CEDRA - Commission for the Economic Development of Rural Areas REDZ - Rural Economic Development Zones WDC - The Western Development Commission SME - Small and medium enterprise EFSF - European Financial Stability Facility IDA - Foreign Direct Investment Agency FDI - Foreign Direct Investment GPP - Green Public Procurement GI - Green ERDF - European Regional Development Fund ESIF - European Structural and Investment Fund PPP - Public-Private Partnership IPPC - Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control EPA - Environmental Protection Agency EC – European Commission DAHG - Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht

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List of illustrations

Page 2-3, View of peat bogs from Craghan Hill, Co. Offaly, Ireland (Eggleton, 2014) Page 6, Bog of Allen (Sarah, 2007) Page 18, ‘family stacking turf to dry’ (IFL, 2015) Page 19 ‘double track east of Lanesborough’ (Mona, 2013) Page 19, ‘Large-scale turf cutting beside N59 west of Bellacorick’ (Brooksbank, 1993) Page 26, ‘Ruaille Buaille Sculpture at Lough Boora’ (Rambling, 2012) Page 26, Morphosis Vals Hotel (Morphosis, 2015) Page 31 38, Apple Planning Application (Apple, 2014) Page 37, Bog Drains (SNH, 2014) Page 38, Clara Bog Walkway (Clara, 2012) Page 38, Boora Bog Visitors Centre (DNFC, 2010) Page 39, Kumbh Mela Pontoon Bridges (Mayhew, 2013) Page 41 Hy-Fi brick tower (The Living, 2015) Page 43 Agricultural shed, Co. Meath (RILCO, 2014) Page 44, Somerset sunset, agricultural sheds (Taylor, 2016)

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