Executive Summary

• Anna Rigoli, Director of Architecture at TTSP, explores how community benefits in data centre development go beyond district heating, because it’s not always feasible.
• The impact of data centres should be addressed by widening the analysis of what a community is, and how some of the most valuable benefits like knowledge, skills, relationships and opportunities are much harder to quantify yet may have a longer-lasting impact.
• Data centres used to be invisible to the public, seeing as they do not actively serve them directly. Public understanding of what data centres are and how they work is limited, and people experience the digital world as immaterial, so they would rarely think that every photograph we take, a bank transfer, etc., ultimately depends on a physical building full of servers, a cooling plant and electrical equipment. If the industry wants to improve relationships with communities, perhaps it needs to consider how to be better understood and how to break the data centres’ invisibility.

When discussing the public impact of architecture and construction on communities, I have observed a general tendency to position the developer as either the soulless and greedy enemy of the people or some gloriously thoughtful benefactor who is going to impart its generous assets onto a somewhat confused and often passively grateful community. Much discussion about ESG in recent years has developed, in relation to the social ‘S’, a specific language, which almost inevitably brings in terminology like green infrastructure, community centres, placemaking, education initiatives, thriving and vibrant neighbourhoods.

There is a lot to say about these ideas, and if developed in partnership with the recipient communities and their specific needs through real participation and connection, there clearly is a fundamental opportunity for people to thrive around construction development. The way we, as designers, look at architecture has certainly a very significant impact in this debate.

However, the reality is often more complicated than vague good intentions and sustainability and social targets become either nice to have or get simplified and reduced, in the worst cases, to some tick-box exercise.

In the data centre construction industry, there is not another topic as over discussed and often completely misunderstood as district heating and heat re-use, which have become almost a symbolic solution, as mysterious to the general public as data centres themselves are.

Like placemaking as a convenient catch-all language that signals community benefit without necessarily defining what that benefit will be or for whom, district heating has become for the sector the headline explanation of why data centres are a brilliant investment for any community, and the go-to benefit that rebalances the negative impact of data centres development, in particular by offering a clear argument to the narrative that data centres are simply large consumers of electricity.

District heating distributes hot water or steam through insulated underground pipes to multiple buildings. The heat can come from many sources: energy from waste plants, combined heat and power (CHP), geothermal, industrial processes and, increasingly, data centres.

District heating is often presented as the ideal community benefit associated with data centre developments, and where the right conditions exist it is a way to recover waste heat and reduce carbon emissions. However, in practice it is not always feasible. Successful schemes depend on factors such as the proximity of suitable buildings, existing or planned heat networks, commercial agreements and the viability of long-term infrastructure investment. District heating can be an excellent solution where the conditions are right, but those conditions are relatively uncommon.

I will then try to explain why, in my opinion, the impact of data centres should also be addressed by widening the analysis of what a community is, much more than a heating network, and how some of the most valuable benefits like knowledge, skills, relationships and opportunities are much harder to quantify yet may have a longer-lasting impact.

If we do look at the issue of data centre development in its impact over local communities, we probably should start by considering why people struggle to relate to data centres in the first instance.

There may be many reasons why the industry has been quite invisible for a long time, some are historically to do with the secrecy around data centre locations and security requirements to protect data from breaches and theft. Good security means they are intentionally discreet.

In recent years, however, data centres have been associated with substantial energy and water consumption whilst people have often ignored the reality that data centres are the infrastructure system supporting the exponential technological development which supports modern societies.

The public understanding of what a data centre is and how it works is also very limited in itself. Firstly, these buildings are often designed not to be noticed as grey anonymous boxes that often resembles logistics parks or general industrial buildings. Unlike airports, hospitals or railway stations, data centres have no public function and there is no reason for the average person ever to see inside one.

Secondly, and probably more importantly, people experience the digital world as immaterial. We would rarely think that every photograph we take, a bank transfer or a Spotify playlist ultimately depend on a physical building full of servers, cooling plant and electrical equipment.

For years there was little reason to explain data centres to wider society. These buildings were commissioned by hyperscalers, financial institutions or co-location providers. Communication focused on technical performance, resilience and uptime, not on explaining what the buildings actually are.

The paradox is that the more efficiently the technology works, the less people notice it and this invisibility makes public understanding harder but also it limits the opportunity for people to ask questions, understand impact and participate to conversations about how the infrastructure should be built.

If the industry wants to improve relationships with communities perhaps it needs to consider how to be better understood and how to break the data centres invisibility. Because data centres tend to become visible only during the planning approval process the debate tends to be limited around planning requirements, with district heating becoming the one visible trade-off.

However, education might be the better opportunity for the data centre community to create a deeper awareness in the public of the overall benefits of data centres, and for the public debate to focus around the things that can be improved and influenced in data centre design.

Whilst I note some positive efforts have been made by technology companies to promote education around their buildings, they also tend to dominate the conversation because they own the infrastructure and the data in the first place.

A different community already exists that understands data centres and it includes architects, engineers, planners, sustainability consultants, contractors, technicians and facilities professionals. Whilst not controlling the technology itself this is a vast and untapped resource that would be best placed to advise local authorities and educate schools, universities and local communities about data centres.

When data centres become finally open and a visible partner to the communities they inhabit, when they share knowledge and opportunities, when they inspire the younger generation to learn and become involved in the industry, the relationship becomes not just education but partnership and this is where the largest benefit will be felt in the future.

The images accompanying this article are drawn from Aidan Safsaf’s thesis project, developed as part of the Level 7 Architecture Apprenticeship at Oxford Brookes University while working as an Architectural Assistant at TTSP Architects. Completed in July 2026, the project reimagines the typically isolated data centre as part of the urban fabric, exploring how secure digital infrastructure might coexist with public realm, local communities and circular resource systems,  and considers what a more civic model of digital infrastructure might look like within the contemporary city.