We last took a look at the construction of Bresler's Parliament Street Data Centre in early-July, when the five-storey, 22,000-square-meter (236,000 square-foot) data facility was in the process of topping off. In the time since, work has begun on the installation of the building's cladding, which will take the form of tan, brown, and black porcelain slats designed to evoke the feeling of the punch cards used during the dawn of the computer-era. Designed by WZMH Architects, the building's unique cladding will bring visual interest to the mostly windowless structure. 

Cladding installation now under way at the Parliament Street Data Centre, image by Jack Landau

Installation of cladding has already begun, and much of the building's west façade is now covered in an opaque black finish with large vertical fins. These fins will serve as the mounting point for the porcelain slats seen in the project's renderings. You can find them in our dataBase file for the project, linked at the bottom of this article.

Cladding on the west side of the Parliament Street Data Centre, image by Jack Landau

The lack of windows can be attributed to the specific set of needs of a data centre, which requires a cool, dry environment with no sunlight. This has given WZMH both the opportunity and the challenge of coming up with a stable environment for a data centre, while also incorporating the building into the surrounding urban fabric of the adjacent Corktown and Distillery District neighbourhoods.

South side of the Parliament Street Data Centre, image by Jack Landau

The completed facility will serve as the new TR2 IBX Data Centre for lead tenant Equinix, who will utilize 35% of the building's total of 2,450 cabinets. over half of the building's total area will be occupied by "white space" for servers, while a single floor will be dedicated to building systems. Tenant offices will occupy the building's ground floor frontages, which are currently being clad in vision glass.

Glazing installation on the south side of the Parliament Street Data Centre, image by Jack Landau

Many of our readers have asked why the data centre is being constructed wide-and-low on high-value downtown real estate, as opposed to in a less expensive, more suburban location. The answer is fairly simple; most companies that will utilize the data centre's services are located within the core, and a user's proximity to a data centre has a direct correlation with the speed of the service. For high-volume users of the internet, every incremental improvement in the speed of access is important.

Cladding installation now under way at the Parliament Street Data Centre, image by Jack Landau

For more information about the Parliament Street Data Centre, check out our dataBase file for the building, linked below, or choose the associated Forum thread link to get in on the conversation. You can also leave a comment in the space provided at the bottom of this page.

Related Companies:  Trillium Architectural Products, WZMH Architects