SERVER SPACE
2011 // AARHUS SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE [DK]
At the Aarhus school of Architecture the servers are placed in a none heated room, thus benefiting from the cold winters to provide cooling; when hotter times comes, an air-condition unite kicks in and provides the necessary cooling whilst exhausting hot clean air to the environment. We wanted to show this, to use it; the relationship between the weather conditions and the activity on the servers; as a spatial exercise.
The project thus becomes about the immaterial world surrounding us; about making the immaterial visible, investigating the relationship between the context and the nature of the temporary plastic structure. The difference of the space at the inflated and collapsed state. When the ventilation system is active, the plastic structure adopts the shape of the static frame of the gallery, creating an imprint of the frame. At inactive level, the collapse of the structure recreates the open space.
What constitutes a space? In the plastic structure, are you inside or outside? Or is it something in-between? The hot exhaust air holding it up keeps the climate warm and the light from the building keeps it ‘open’ at night. But is it an extension to the building or something completely on its own. Many might referee to it as a parasite; I think more of it as a condition, a something that happened and only by the will of the air-condition unite. Would it have been posible to prolong your stay, by working the servers, and by working them extra hard could you get the temperature to raise within the space?
A collaboration with Karianne Halse
Visual description: A central view down through a high and narrow space enclosed by a large inflated plastic structure. The sun is coming in strong from the left side, throwing shadows of the exterior railing onto the plastic that bends and morphs them, and at the top the shadow is pitch black.
Visual description: Seen through a pressure release hole from the outside of an inflatable plastic structure, the neck of a person is seen who is bend over and looking out of the structure. Over the back of the person two wooden chairs are visible.
Visual description: A view from the ground of a court yard, looking up at the inflated temporary plastic architectural space inhabiting a narrow catwalk and pressing against the black wooden frame of the catwalk. On the ground there is snow, the building is white with a terra cotta red roof. The building is intersected perpendicular by a lower building with terra cotta roof twice the hight of its walls. On the left side of the photo a staircase provides access from the courtyard to the catwalk.
Visual description: A photo montage of four individual photos all focusing on an section of the inflatable temporary architectural structure, inhabiting a black painted wooden catwalk. To the far left a person is visible on the catwalk floor exiting the structure. Inside the structure the same person with bright white hair is visible, on the left side they are looking out with one eye through a vent hole, while on the right side they appear to be making a photo through another vent hole.
Visual description: Interior view taken a roof level, in the center of the inflatable temporary architectural space are three Børge Morgensen chairs.
Visual description: An interior view from the inflatable temporary architectural structure where the plastic is seen pushing against an existing window with six small individual panes.
Visual description: Two photos, the first is a wooden frame that is suspended from the catwalks roof, making a stable opening of the inflatable temporary architectural structure to receive the air from the server exhaust. The second photo os a close up of the wooden frame, showing the grove where the plastic is held in tension by a small round wooden stick avoiding the plastic tearing by spreading the load.
Visual description: A night view from the courtyard, the inflatable temporary architectural space is lit from within. The shadow of two people are visible inside the structure, below it a bright light over a door shines.
