Data + Ethics: A Think Tank in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CASpring 2022, Columbia University GSAPP
Collaborators: Ece Cetin, Sujin Shim
Critic: Galia Solomonoff
Data + Ethics is a think tank focused on effective use, outreach and development of scientific and digital technologies for ethical, transparent and sustainable data and information processes. Lo - cated at eastern portion of the Santa Monica Mountains, Data + Ethics features meeting and work spaces for 40 scholars in residence, 15 visiting scholars, an auditorium for lectures and events, a library, dining and catering areas. Providing collaborative spaces for data engineers, designers, sociologists, computer engineers and policy makers, Data + Ethics focuses on digital ethics, information tracking, media and communication technologies. Data center spaces continuously flow at the site along with landscape, water component and circulation path.
We investigated the physical necessities around data systems and the digital world, water also was the key critical component enabling these systems to function. Our research re - vealed that the typical data center uses an astounding 3-5 million gallons of water per day to cool a data center which is equivalent to the amount of water a city of 30,000-50,000 people would need in a day. We sought to both develop a system which recycled this water, and display the concealed but extreme use of water to maintain global technological systems, by surfacing the water used to cool the data center at various points in our site.
