Data centres - design, district integration and sustainability forum

Image: Courtesy of Buro Happold

Transport for London's former Advisor and Developer of Clean Energy, Mobility & Infrastructure | Head of Energy & Electrification, Alex Gilbert will be contributing to our 'Data Centres - strategy and sustainability' discussion event this week.

With over eight years of experience as Head of Energy & Electrification at Places for London (TfL's Property Company), Alex has lead the curation, commercialisation and delivery of transformative energy projects that enhance London's economic, environmental, and social resilience.

Other contributors to the discussion will be the Leader of Hertsmere Borough Council, Cllr Jeremy Newark, Chris Patience, Principal, Grimshaw, John Jeffery, Customer Solutions Director, Mace Construct and James Warne, Sector Lead - Data Centres - Buro Happold.

Jeremy Newmark was appointed as Leader of Hertsmere Borough Council in May 2023. As member for Borehamwood's Cowley Hill Ward he represents an area that scores as one of the highest in the country on the national indices of multiple deprivation. Cllr Newmark was elected Chair of the Hertfordshire Growth Board in July 2024. Jeremy also sits on the Board of the Local Enterprise Partnership, known as Hertfordshire Futures, where he co-chairs their Business and Enterprise Panel.

Chris Patience is a Principal at leading architectural practice Grimshaw, working across numerous large scale, high profile projects. With over 20 years’ industry experience, he has been involved in a number of complex architectural projects in master-planning, commercial, transport, infrastructure, residential, and education sectors, across all RIBA stages. 

Recent projects include HS2 Colne Valley Viaduct, HS2 Euston Station, Network Rail Euston Station, Newport Active Travel Bridge, Heathrow commercial and industrial developments, a new landmark commercial building in Canary Wharf, as well as multiple energy generation and data centre projects. Within the London studio he leads the practice’s Infrastructure portfolio, ranging from civils, energy, industrial and digital sectors. His work promotes the integration of architecture, engineering and construction.

John Jeffery, Customer Solutions and Data Centre SME Director at Mace Construct, says his passion is to “Pursue a sustainable and digitally connected world” - through fresh ideas, innovation and modern methods of design, manufacturing and assembly, He says Mace is revolutionising how data centres are designed and constructed and it is imperative upon all in the DCs community to ensure that the DCs of the now and future: have less embodied carbon; generate less waste; provide for a circular economy; use less energy and natural resources & create biodiversity.

James Warne, works as Building Environments Director at Buro Happold. Previous to this he was Director at INHABIT EUROPE LIMITED, leading the sustainability and environmental engineering teams across UK, Europe, Middle East and African projects. Inhabit is part of the Egis group.

Buro Happold has described the state of data centre sector in 2025:

'Data centre developers and operators fall into four key typologies – enterprise, colocation, edge and hyperscale. But it’s the latter – dominated by the tech industry’s big hitters, the likes of Microsoft, Amazon, Google or Meta, where the energy demands of facilities become extreme.'

'The challenge is twofold. First, there’s the sheer scale of energy demand. A single hyperscale facility can consume as much electricity as tens of thousands of homes and sometimes even whole cities. Second, there’s the issue of where that energy comes from. While many countries have made significant strides in decarbonising their grids – thanks to offshore wind, solar, and nuclear – data centres often require consistent, high-quality power that intermittent renewables alone can’t always guarantee. This tension between digital growth and environmental responsibility is driving innovation in energy generation and procurement. Operators are exploring on-site renewables, private wire agreements, and even small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). But the path to truly sustainable hyperscale infrastructure is far from straightforward.'

The forum will focus on how data centres can be designed sustainably to fit into city districts, how the growth of data centres will affect the UK's net zero goals and whether it will squeeze out much needed housing particularly in the Capital.

Hertsmere Borough Council is building a new data centre in the green belt at a cost of £4bn. It has described its project as one which will lead to significant economic benefits as developers say it will be Europe's largest cloud and AI data centre, spanning approximately 2 million square feet. It is aiming for completion by 2029. The data centre will be built near the M25 motorway and will occupy 85 acres. Thousands of jobs are expected to be needed in its construction.

The project is part of the UK's AI Action Plan, but communities across the country have been raising opposition to data centres being built near their homes with concerns about how their design fits into the town or landscape, beyond the large demand for water and power to run them.

Buro Happold advises that for local authorities, three practical moves can convert good intentions into delivered results around data centre heat recovery.

The first is to bring heat explicitly into site selection and pre‑application dialogue. If your spatial strategy directs data centres toward corridors that already align power, fibre and future heat demand, you shorten delivery times and reduce capital cost. Authorities that host strategic growth, major estates or high‑density housing allocations are especially well placed, since continuous base heat is what underwrites network economics.

The second is to tie your approach to Local Area Energy Plans. Doing so helps coordinate utilities, makes a clearer case to regulators and investors, and ensures district heat is considered alongside power reinforcement and, where relevant, water and drainage.

The third is to use planning obligations to protect the route to export. Even where you cannot mandate connection outright, conditions and Section 106 obligations can secure plant space, primary pipe corridors and a future‑proofed heat interface, so the option is not engineered away during value engineering.

It comments:

'Critically for local authorities, public value sits alongside the technical and commercial case. Data centres are high energy users by any standard, and even very low PUE (power usage effectiveness) facilities will consume significant power. Heat recovery reframes that conversation for residents and elected members by delivering tangible outcomes and opportunities to access low carbon and low cost heat.

'When a new facility helps reduce bills on a social housing estate, plays a part in decarbonising a hospital or strengthens the business case for a town‑centre heat network, the political calculus changes. That does not remove scrutiny. It does show that growth in digital infrastructure can be aligned with climate commitments and cost of living priorities when planned as an integrated system.'

Mace Construct, one of the UK’s top construction firms, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with clean infrastructure developer and investor, Pathfinder Clean Energy Limited (PACE). 

PACE has a portfolio of secured clean power able to supply 168MW of IT capacity. Power availability is expected to come online as early as 2027, and data capacity following from 2028.

The partnership will see Mace Construct engaged at the earliest stages of these projects – RIBA Stage 0: Strategic Definition to help determine each project's feasibility, viability and optimising design and build strategy. The agreement incentivises collaboration as each project progresses from initial conception through to execution. 

PACE expects the initial three sites to enter construction in 2026. These sites are strategically positioned in high-demand regions with secured grid capacity, specifically the Southeast, West Midlands and West of England. The sites are being developed to support ‘latency-sensitive’ applications such as high-performance computing and AI.

Once built, the facilities will be powered through ‘direct wire’ renewable power generation and energy storage from the outset, creating the foundation for scalable, energy-backed digital infrastructure. 

Mace Construct says:

'Through combining our experience in developing and constructing clean infrastructure and utilising Mace Construct’s industry-leading data centre experience, we will lay the foundation for the next generation of digital infrastructure for AI and high-performance computing in the UK.

'This is an exciting time for PACE as we bring forward the urgent data centre capacity in the markets.'

As part of the 19th International Architecture Biennale, Grimshaw showcased an installation: Data Centres and the City: From Problem to Solution on the Path to Sustainable Urbanism. The exhibit, which includes a large-scale model linked to a six-minute animation, explores how data centres and our digital futures should not be ‘hidden’ systems but embedded as civic infrastructure, socially and environmentally integrated into the typology of our cities.

Exhibited in the Arsenale (Entry 187 of the international programme), the installation proposed a radical evolution of the data centre, responding to the Biennale’s theme “Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.”

Grimshaw says:

'As artificial intelligence, cloud computing and digital infrastructures expand at scale, the question of how and where data lives becomes a matter of urgent spatial consequence. These invisible systems demand energy, land, water and connectivity. Their presence reshapes how cities function, what they consume, and whom they serve. This installation responds to this moment by asking a clear, powerful question: What if data infrastructure served not only technology demands, but our communities, places, and futures?

'The installation’s synchronised narrative visualises the embedded flows of energy, water, information, and interaction, positioning the data centre as a regenerative force in urban life, critical systems thinking that connects economic vitality, environmental health, and social systems for net positive impact. While provocative and speculative in tone, the installation is informed by a live Grimshaw-designed project currently in development with global industrial property and digital infrastructure group, Goodman.

'The installation was developed in collaboration with Goodman and supported technically by Arup (Entry 188), whose expertise in sustainable infrastructure and environmental systems helped shape the ambition and viability of the proposal. This triangulation between design, development and systems intelligence reflects the kind of interdependence today’s urban futures demand.

'With a pledged commitment to design and deliver socially and environmentally regenerative buildings and assets by 2030, the Data Centres and the City installation furthers Grimshaw’s sustainability leadership in the industry. It also reflects the practice’s consideration of the civic significance and environmental responsibility of infrastructure: how it belongs, not just performs.'