Malachi Pursley, AIA, is a licensed architect in Gensler's New York office who focuses on the intersection of architecture and justice, with project experience across data center, aviation, and logistics sectors.
Today, we connect, use, and distribute information on a scale unprecedented in human history. The digital infrastructure powering this way of life has shaped how we see the world, understand society, and even define ourselves. Such power should be accessible to all, creating true equity in an ever-expanding digital landscape. For architects, this is an opportunity to return to our roots: designing spaces that empower local communities, rather than disenfranchise them. In 2024 alone, global operators added more than seven gigawatts of capacity to the grid, with campuses sprawling across rural landscapes and into urban cores. These facilities power everything, including telemedicine and the digital collateral underpinning daily life. Yet they often present as blank concrete fortresses—isolated, resource-intensive, and mistrusted by communities that see them as industrial boxes consuming water and energy while offering little in return.
But what if architects could design these buildings as catalysts for civic resilience and ecological restoration?
Data centers, among the fastest-growing building typologies, shape social, ecological, and economic systems. Driven by grassroots organizations and public pressure, operators are being asked to embed sustainability and social impact into their development strategies. Architects can bridge these approaches with community needs, ensuring development delivers tangible benefits rather than hidden impacts.
In Quincy, Washington, Microsoft’s campus integrates renewable energy and water recycling while funding local STEM programs. In Denmark, Meta’s Odense facility channels waste heat to warm 6,900 homes. In Northern Virginia, data centers support thousands of jobs and local training programs.
Beyond secondary impacts, we envision these centers as a direct catalyst for the future of how we work and live. Several operators are repurposing abandoned industrial buildings in communities hard hit by economic shifts. This new digital infrastructure can be transformative for neighborhoods navigating a data-driven economy. One could envision an AI processing center as the centerpiece of a new technology park, where local companies and community organizations could tap into those computing resources and develop their own tools and talent. Under this model, access to data becomes an incubation engine for local economic growth.
These examples prove data centers can serve more than distant digital needs. They can stabilize grids, support education, have a compounding impact on local economies, and restore ecosystems.
Shifting public perception requires reframing data centers as regenerative infrastructure and civic assets that promote equity and inclusion. Instead of symbols of extraction, they can become interwoven into the urban fabric: improving local utilities, serving as emergency shelters, hosting public art, or cultivating vertical gardens. Waste heat can warm nearby schools; landscaped façades can reduce heat islands and recharge aquifers. These interventions transform a perceived liability into a visible force for good and advocacy.
Architects can lead by introducing community benefit agreements that connect developers and neighborhoods. Adaptive reuse of abandoned power plants offers a chance to breathe new life into forgotten spaces, turning liabilities into civic assets. Even simple design interventions matter. Blank walls can become canvases for art or greenery, or a precast façade can evolve into a vertical garden. These strategies move us beyond low-impact sustainability toward high-impact transformation.
Advocacy begins with dialogue. Too often, misinformation breeds distrust around issues like water consumption or energy use. Architects can counteract this by presenting transparent, digestible information at community hearings and public events. Imagine outreach programs with interactive exhibits explaining how data centers manage resources, contribute to grid resiliency, and create local jobs. These conversations build trust and shift narratives from fear to opportunity.
The question isn’t whether data centers will proliferate; demand dictates that they will. The question is whether we, as architects, will seize the chance to shape them into assets that serve both digital and human needs. By advocating for sustainability, equity, and civic engagement, we can transform these buildings from isolated fortresses into catalysts for community well-being.
Data centers don’t have to symbolize disconnection—an ironic association, given that their output connects us in ways we never thought possible. They can become hubs of resilience, education, and ecological restoration. The digital age is rewriting the rules of infrastructure and, as architects anchored in advocacy, we must ensure it also rewrites the story of community empowerment.
