A Data Centre Knitted Into the Community Fabric

Data centres are fundamental infrastructure in today's digital environment. Merlot 3 is a data centre located in West Footscray, a suburb of Melbourne, resting at the junction between large industrial developments and low-scale residential dwellings. HDR is providing architecture, engineering and workplace design for the 80 megawatt M3 Data Centre, featuring a Tier IV design to meet the long-term demand of NEXTDC's premium services, mitigating the risk of reaching capacity, and allowing them to respond quickly to the growing need for data centres.

The design of the data centre is sensitive to its local environment. The bulk of the building form, which contains the data centre and mission critical offices, has been set back from residential streets while lower forms are positioned between the residential streets and the data centre. As a result, the project blends into the residential neighbourhood and is designed with the well-being of local residents in mind. 

'Pocket Parks' have been designed along the façade, at the termination of perpendicular streets, providing visual screening and bookending views. A smaller scale café has been designed along the street edge. The materiality and form is similar to that of nearby dwellings and it provides a gentle transition from residential to industrial. Red is a strong element of corporate branding for the client and it has been applied between the agitations in the façade.

For NEXTDC, energy efficiency is a core business imperative and is a focus for their data centres. In alignment with the City of Maribyrnong, M3 is committed to achieving an excellent Built Environment Sustainability Scorecard, based on ten sustainable design categories that the council outlines for developments of this type and scale.