Director of NIIURS Ekaterina Burtseva (left) and competition winners: Valeria Sivkova, Ksenia Tananykina, Petr Kuzichkin, Ekaterina Kozlova, Katrina Tomaka
On 27 November, the SPbGASU creative space "Growth Point" hosted a round table "ESG-Data Center and the Living Environment of the Future: Technologies, Social Environment and Ecology". It was organized by the SPbGASU Educational Center of Project-Based Learning and the ANO "Research Institute for Sustainable Development in Construction" (NIIURS).
The event was attended by heads of specialized companies and government organizations, including the first deputy chairman of the Committee for Urban Development Policy of the Leningrad Region - Chief Architect of the Leningrad Region Sergey Lutchenko, the first deputy general director of the SRO "Association of Builders of St Petersburg" Boris Lysich and others, as well as students and teachers of the SPbGASU Faculty of Architecture.
From left to right: Boris Lysich; Deputy Director of the Scientific and Technical Center for Integrated Development of Engineering Infrastructure of Gazprom Promgaz JSC Aleksandr Yudin; Sergey Lutchenko; Director of NIURS Vera Burtseva; Honored Architect of the Russian Federation, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Architecture and Construction Sciences Maksim Atayants Third-year students presented concepts for a settlement for 1,200 residents at a promising multifunctional ESG data processing center, developed as part of their course projects. Experts selected the best works. All contestants received certificates for cash rewards: fifth, fourth, and third place winners received 5,000 rubles each, second place winner received 15,000 rubles, and first place winner received 30,000 rubles.
The Future is in ESG Data Centers
Opening the meeting, Vera Burtseva, Director of the NIUIRS, told how the idea for the competition came about. While working on her dissertation in sociology, Vera Sergeevna identified a number of problems related to the living environment of the future. It is highly likely that such an environment will be tightly integrated with nature, which raises the question: where will people work? The researcher suggested that such a place in the paradigm of sustainable development will be data processing centers (DPC). The NIUIRS employees approached ITMO University with this idea.
Dean of the Green Tech Faculty at ITMO University Ekaterina Tambulatova noted that the work on creating concepts captivated the students. According to the dean, collaborations between businesses and universities produce good results that will have a positive impact on our society as a whole, and are also in line with the development of the country's technological sovereignty in accordance with the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of 28 February, 2024.
Deputy Dean for Career Guidance Counceling, Associate Professor at the SPbGASU Department of Architectural Design Oleg Fedorov expressed gratitude to NIURS for involving students of our university in the project. Oleg Pavlovich is confident that working in collaboration with ITMO will benefit the project.
Oleg Fedorov The keynote report was made by Ekaterina Karpova, a Master's student at ITMO University. "Analysts claim that in the next seven to nine years, the volume of data stored in digital form on our planet will grow 45 times. During this period, Russia will have to build and launch new data processing centers with a total capacity of up to 1,000 megawatts," she said. From her speech, the roundtable participants learned that new data centers must meet ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) requirements: be energy efficient, environmentally friendly, and have a positive social component. The features of new ESG data centers are connection to main gas pipelines and evaporative cooling. Warm air is a secondary energy resource: in world practice, waste warm air is used for year-round cultivation of heat-loving fish and plants, in swimming pools and spas. As for the social component, on average, an ESG data center creates jobs for about 300 employees.
Ekaterina Karpova
ESG-DOC receives natural gas from the external environment and provides data processing, storage and transmission services, as well as productin of table greens, gourmet fish, health restoration and rehabilitation services, and recreation services for people in a developed leisure infrastructure.
Data processing centers are no longer unique structures and are moving into the category of standard design and construction facilities. There are at least 200 points of possible localization of ESG data centers with a capacity of 5000 kW in Russia.
Managing partner of the company "Bureau of Technology" Sergey Burtsev noted that many outstanding philosophers developed the city of the future - a socially complex environment that integrates various industries, a comfortable residential area and a recreation area. Therefore, the participants of the round table can be proud of their involvement in the creation of favorable conditions for human life.
SPbGASU students designs
The site offered to the contestants is located in the outskirts of St Petersburg, south of Vsevolozhsk, near the intersection of Koltuhskoe and Yuzhnoe highways. The territory proposed for the project development has a rich natural environment and a connection with the lake. In addition, a gas pipeline runs along the design site, which is important for the placement of the data center complex.
Valeria Sivkova Presenting her project, student Valeria Sivkova shared its main idea, which is competent zoning and creating a comfortable environment for residents, guests and employees of the center. The author designed a convenient transport environment and a pedestrian framework that allows, regardless of where you live, to comfortably get to the center, where public buildings are located. The main street forms the accent axis and leads all residents to the urban core, where there is a grocery store, a sports center, an administration, a chapel, a leisure center, and a public transport stop. To the south, there is a hotel with a spa complex overlooking the lake. For the data center building, Valeria decided to use simple and effective materials that add lightness to the structure. The center should have a large parking lot. Nearby, there is an amusement park, the public environment of which consumes excess heat from the data center. A large number of pedestrian routes with all kinds of recreation areas have been designed: these are sports grounds with exercise machines, a basketball court, a skateboarding area, a pet walking area, children's playgrounds, an amphitheater for events, a small Ferris wheel, a rope park and a beach. Valeria is sure: for long-term development, it is important to design the environment correctly from the very beginning.
Petr Kuzichkin Student Petr Kuzichkin formulated a concept based on the maximum interconnection of the data center with the structure of the village. Two key connections were designed for this: the data center is a community center, and the data center is a park with greenhouses and a spa complex. Part of the natural monument Koltushskie Heights is located on this site, which will serve as a recreation area for residents and tourists. The transport and pedestrian framework is being built on two main streets. The first one runs through the entire village and connects the streets with the data center, thanks to which all residents will have the most convenient access to their workplace. The second street is perpendicular to it and serves as an entrance to the village. The data center building consists of three spaces that are combined in such a way that one flows into the other: this symbolizes the flow of waste energy from the server room to the greenhouse and aqua farm. The facade is decorated with metal lamellas that echo the internal structure of the servers and “lighten” its appearance.
When developing the project concept, student Katrina Tomaka singled out the relief near the lake and the ravine from which drainage ditches branch out, and decided to preserve them: this is how the heart of the village, the community center, was formed between them. The data center is located on the southern border of the site. This solution takes into account the terrain, the adjoining gas pipeline, as well as the wind rose and sanitary protection zones, which will reduce the impact on the residential area. With this location, the data center does not limit the subsequent expansion of the village boundaries. Several settlements adjoin the site, which the author united with the help of a transport framework.
Katrina Tomaka The transport system was formed with the aim of ensuring the interconnection of the data center with all elements of the settlement, in particular, with the community center. Thus, the boulevard is connected to the data center by the main road, along which service elements are located, such as the administrative center and the medical station, with views of the lake, as well as a public transport stop. Independently from it, there is another road that connects the school, kindergarten and grocery store and then also leads to the data center. Both roads are complemented by pedestrian and bicycle paths.
What is important is that the data processing center is located here within the settlement system, which makes it an integral part of the infrastructure: the data processing center becomes not only a functional element, but also fits organically into the overall development plan and composition of the settlement.
Each road ends with a recognizable landmark. Here is the aforementioned boulevard in a modern interpretation, where on one side is a multifunctional community center, and on the other is a ditch with lush greenery. All this is on an axis that begins with a school and ends with a church, and the boulevard continues with the entrance to the park.
Katrina presented the utility lines and the park, as well as the data center building: "Since the data center is a fairly large and heavy building, it was decided to lighten it using materials - frosted glass and CLT panels (environmentally friendly and durable). The object also managed to be made more airy in composition due to vertical slats. As a result, the data center fits harmoniously into the architectural environment of the village."
Ksenia Tananykina In the project proposed by student Ksenia Tananykina, the main idea was to ensure a close connection between the data center and the entire village. All public and cultural functions are concentrated in the park area around the town center. The main square of the village, the main entrance to the park, the spa center and the hotel complex are located here. The sports and health center also implies a connection with the natural environment. The author separated the flows of visitors and passers-by so as not to disturb the peace of the village residents.
The arrangement of a linear park is expedient not only from the point of view of ensuring pedestrian accessibility of the data center for all residents of the village, but also the formation of a green framework. The park becomes a visual connection between the green leisure park and the green sanitary protection strip of the data center. The data center forward the excess heat not only to the pavilions and greenhouses of the linear park, but also the botanical greenhouse at the school.
Ekaterina Kozlova Ekaterina Kozlova's concept was based on the idea of creating a pedestrian framework from the existing landscaping in such a way that this framework would ensure accessibility of all public facilities from any point in the village. Two local roads lead to the site. Entrances to the village are organized from each of them. The data center is located in the structure of the village from the south, it is approached both from the adjacent road and from the structure of the village, and one of the pedestrian axes leads to it. The data center is separated from the residential development by a number of public facilities - a sports center, a store, a park. For the street and road network, it was important for Ekaterina to create maximum exposure of the development to the natural landscape, so all the axes face the lake. The main axis includes an internal center consisting of a school and a kindergarten, then a group of sectional houses, and ends with a public center with an opening onto the lake. A gas pipeline runs along the border of the village, from which the data center is fed. The secondary heat from the data center is distributed through the pipeline network along two guides. The first one goes to the sports complex and the open stadium. The second guide goes to the park, spa center and community center of the village. The architectural appearance of the village is developed based on the principles of a comfortable suburban residential environment. First of all, low-rise buildings are presented, public buildings are highlighted with a color accent. The same accents are used for the data center to integrate it into the structure of the village. To simplify the visual image of the data center, hanging perforated metal panels are used as the main decorative element.
Results
The experts highly appreciated the level of our students’ competition works, emphasizing that behind each of them there is a lot of work and support from the teachers of the Department of Architectural Design – Associate Professors Igor Ivanov, Maria Yakunenkova, Nina Drizhapolova.
The prize places were distributed as follows:
- 1 place – Katrina Tomaka;
- 2 place – Ekaterina Kozlova;
- 3 place – Ksenia Tananykina;
- 4 place – Valeria Sivkova;
- 5 place – Petr Kuzichkin.
The roundtable participants expressed their desire to expand the scope of the competition and involve engineering students as well.
The event presented the idea of organizing an international interdisciplinary competition "Multifunctional ESG Data Centers and Living Environments" focused on Russia and the BRICS countries. The competition will bring together students, architects and engineers to create innovative solutions that support ESG principles in data centers and living environments. This will become a platform for cooperation and exchange of experience between participants from different countries.
We wish the contestants from SPbGASU further professional success!
Project by Valeria Sivkova
Project by Ekaterina Kozlova
Project by Katrina Tomaka
Project by Ksenia Tananykina
Project by Petr Kuzichkin
