Comment by rzerowan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rzerowan | Hacker News Reader

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Im wondering why the typical design is a warehouse with horizontal sprawl . Wouldnt it make sense to go vertical up or down .

Smaller footprint if insidea a metro area by having a skyscarper type data center , as i recall AT&T used to have such windowless anonymous buldings scattered in some cities for their equipment. Or have a Silo type structure going down if in a more rural area to not blight the landscape.With added advantage of dampenig on the sound pollution (although not sure what effects a humming underground building will have on subterrerean life).

Probably cost? All those would cost more that the biz are willing to spend , while putting up four walls and a roof is ordeers of scale cheaper.

It's cheaper to build out rather than build up. Datacenters are mass dense so building up requires thick floors and supports for the upper floors.

Coming from a construction family, the saying oft heard saying was "it's more expensive to build up than out". Also, zoning codes can set limits on how tall of a building can be built. Four stories is a common limit which also happens to coincide with the max height for a timber construction is also four stories. If you're out in the 'burbs, you probably wouldn't want to see a random 10 story boring windowless concrete building sticking up somewhere.

I see you've been to Avalon Studios.

    as i recall AT&T used to have such windowless anonymous buldings scattered in some cities
    for their equipment

I worked in Cleveland, and the AT&T building there was one such case. I heard their cabling went 3 stories underground on top of being around 50 floors tall.

Definitely cost although your idea does sound more attractive. A small footprint much further away from the boundary than normal. You could even make them look nice but since demand is massive and timescales so long, I think anything that might take longer is a "no".

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