This thesis explores the interdependent relationship between data—its generation, storage, and consumption—and the utilization of space and energy within the urban fabric, focusing on London as a global data hub. Drawing on historical trends, current observations, and future projections, there is a growing need to reimagine data centre typologies, which must eventually be re-integrated into urban environments where information is produced, processed, and consumed. By challenging traditionally isolated yet highly embedded typologies, the study unfolds a material system that ena functional hybridization, cultivation for food production, and a context-aware space-making framework. These strategies collectively provoke a mutual, participatory integration of data infrastructures into the urban fabric. The initial (M.Sc) phase investigated material systems and functional interdependencies to enable hybridization by repurposing excess heat. By developing a Phase Change Material (PCM) infilled Triply Periodic Minimal Surface (TPMS) panel system, the heat retention performance of the system is introduced by passively regulating the temperature, ensuring thermal comfort for the enveloped agricultural function. Proof-of-concept experiments demonstrate the developed system’s ability to form an energy loop, reducing external dependencies. Additionally, case studies and scenario-building exercises informed the spatial and functional relationships, identifying how environmental factors influence the system’s performance.

The subsequent (M.Arch) phase examines space-making experiments via an automated assembly interpreter to optimize both functional and spatial distribution. Based on context-oriented demographic data, projected computational supply-demand trends, and material system metrics, the capacity calculations determine what and how much to build from 2025 to 2040. Additionally, contextual influences derived from the immediate built environment are integrated into the site-specific vector field optimization, answering where to build. These parameters ultimately inform a semi-modular building strategy, mediating between modularity and permanence for the required spatio-temporal flexibility. Enabled by the initial phase, the topological relationships among spatial nodes are optimized for improved functional distribution and clustering according to function-targeted fitness criteria, further influencing the architectonic element configuration. The resulting space-making framework, developed through successive multi-objective optimization cycles to enhance environmental, structural, and functional performance, is tested across multiple sites, highlighting its adaptability. These parallel sets of experiments ensured a dynamic set of spectra to enhance the building performance and spatial qualities for adaptability and responsiveness to the ever-changing demands of data, space, and energy. The re-positioning of data centres in the urban fabric, through a re-imagined typology, aims to transform today’s unwieldy and isolated facilities into tomorrow’s integral components of the urban ecosystems.