This programme develops the architecture, systems and delivery logic required to make that transition work across Europe — standardising what should repeat while preserving the ability to adapt to different customers, technologies and sites.

For a portfolio operating across multiple markets, the more useful object of design is not the building alone, but the system behind it: dimensional logic, structural rules, cooling strategies, interfaces, delivery methods and the limits within which each site can vary.

The aim is to create enough consistency to support industrialised delivery while retaining the flexibility required by different customers, technologies, sites and regulatory environments.

The challenge

European data centre portfolios are becoming more technically diverse at the same time as they are being asked to deliver more quickly.

A single shell-and-core chassis may need to support conventional cloud environments at 5 to 20kW per rack and AI or HPC configurations at 40 to 100kW per rack and above. Cooling strategies are also changing. Air-cooled and liquid-cooled environments increasingly need to coexist within the same development pipeline.

Traditional masterplans tend to fix form too early. Traditional reference designs have another weakness: they are often issued as static documents and begin to date as soon as customer requirements, technology or the supply chain changes. The programme therefore had to address both the physical product and the knowledge system behind it.

Design response

The reference design is conceived as a configurable chassis.

A column-free kit of parts is organised around an optimised 12 by 24 metre structural grid, lightweight steel gantries and an optional mezzanine for lower-density configurations. Six-megawatt blocks can aggregate into buildings in the range of approximately 48 to 72MW and into larger campus arrangements without changing the underlying logic.

Air and liquid cooling readiness are maintained within the same architecture. The transition between cooling generations therefore becomes a configuration choice rather than a reason to produce a different building. Plant can be arranged in several tested configurations: at ground level, on a gantry, on the roof or within a two-storey arrangement.

Each has implications for land use, access, cost, embodied carbon and maintainability, but all remain part of the same product family. The architectural system is also aligned with the logic of industrialised construction.

Components and interfaces are defined once, then configured according to site and customer conditions. The objective is not simply to prefabricate parts of a conventional building, but to reduce the number of relationships that need to be redesigned and coordinated on every project. A structured work breakdown connects the physical product to the information required to deliver it.

Architecture and engineering define systems and packages. Digital design defines rules, variables and permissible change. Cost and supply-chain information allow different configurations to be compared across markets. This creates the basis for a wider digital backbone around the reference design, where site conditions, customer requirements and local regulation can progressively become structured inputs into the design and delivery process.

Outcome

The studies indicated an increase of approximately 25 per cent in MW per hectare compared with the preceding campus model. At full industrialised scale, the first live IT hall was trending towards approximately nine to ten months, compared with 18 to 24 months for a more conventional delivery sequence.

Structural studies also identified options with embodied-carbon reductions of approximately 41 and 55 per cent. Those numbers describe performance, but the wider value is organisational. The reference design becomes a framework through which design, procurement, construction and operational knowledge can accumulate.

A new project no longer needs to begin by rediscovering the same rules.

The product improves through repetition.