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Data Centre Design

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Designing a modern data centre requires a deep understanding of mission-critical infrastructure, energy-efficient systems, and how to create facilities that are future-proof. BladeRoom takes a comprehensive approach to data centre design, focusing on maximising performance, ensuring resilience, and creating facilities that are both sustainable in construction and operation.

Our in-house design team is experienced in developing complex data centres at any scale, tailored to client needs. This experience has seen them develop designs for more than 300 mission-critical infrastructure projects across the world. Our team is multi-disciplined, with skills and experience in architecture, structural engineering, building services engineering, logistics and facilities management.

From cooling systems to power distribution and redundancy, we ensure that your data centre is designed to support your business’s evolving needs while minimising its operational cost and environmental impact.

Expertise in Data Centre Design

BladeRoom’s designs, developed by our in-house team, ensure that every data centre operates at maximum performance while maintaining resilience, uptime and security. Our designs incorporate N+1N+1 redundancy refers to the inclusion of one additional component to support primary systems, ensuring that operations continue in the event of a single failure. For example, a power system with N+1 redundancy includes one extra power unit. This configuration balances cost and r...Learn more redundancy, concurrent maintainability, and industry-leading cooling solutions to ensure your facility achieves maximum uptime.

Customised to Your Requirements: Our designs are tailored to your operational needs. Whether it's for hyperscale, enterprise, colocation or modular facilities.

Redundancy and Uptime: We design systems with built-in redundancy, ensuring uninterrupted service even in the event of equipment failure or during planned preventative maintenance.

Comprehensive Data Centre Design Service

We have the design expertise in house to provide a truly turnkey data centre project solution for our clients. From architectural and structural to mechanical and electrical, BladeRoom can take your project through every RIBA stage.

Decades of Experience

We have an in-house design team which has decades of experience in off-site manufacturing techniques and data centre design, developing designs for more than 300 mission-critical infrastructure projects across the world.

Multi-Disciplined

Our team is multi-disciplined, with skills and experience in architecture, structural engineering, building services engineering, logistics and facilities management.

Sustainability at the Core of Every Design

BladeRoom’s commitment to sustainability is reflected in every aspect of our data centre designs. From the use of low embodied carbon materials like steel, to the incorporation of energy-efficient cooling systems, we ensure your data centre minimises both its operational and embodied carbon footprints.

The Bladeroom Circular Economy

The Bladeroom Circular Economy
1. Fabric First2. Factory First3. In Use4. Re-Use5. Recycle

1. Fabric First

Our “fabric first” design approach in choice of materials produces mission critical infrastructure with industry leading thermal transmittance and air permeability performance and reduces the quantity of materials required by selecting ones that are more appropriate for a factory assembly process. Some examples of our approach are the steel we use for our superstructures that contains at least 25% recycled content, sourced from local steel fabricators, and the floor protection and HDPE boat wrap used for transport are closed loop recycling products meaning all waste generated from these sources will be fully recycled and will be used as the raw materials for these products again and again.

2. Factory First

‘Factory first’ is our off-site, product-based method for manufacturing up to 90% of our infrastructure technology in our tightly controlled manufacturing centre. It maximises the principle of off-site construction. The process mitigates the risks and issues associated with more conventional construction: we use less materials and create less waste; we can re-use and recycle more, diverting unused materials or offcuts from landfill; we avoid damage and delays caused by weather; and we reduce project transport emissions by minimising the materials and tradespeople heading to site.

3. In Use

Our infrastructure technology is designed to operate as efficiently as possible. BladeRoom data centres are designed to maximise the use of fresh air cooling and minimise the use of potable water, with a hyperscale data centreA hyperscale data centre is a facility specifically designed to support large-scale cloud providers and enterprises. These data centres focus on scalability, energy efficiency, and operational excellence, often encompassing hundreds of megawatts of IT capacity. Hyperscale facilit...Learn more using up to 34,000x less water per year than one person in the UK. Our ModuleCo healthcare facilities are designed with air permeability and thermal transmittance performance beyond the requirements of building control, minimising the heating and cooling requirements throughout the year, as well being specified with energy efficient products as standard. Altogether this helps to minimise the carbon emissions generated through the operation of our infrastructure technology.

4. Re-Use

Our buildings are designed to be relocated and re-used. When they are no longer required, instead of being demolished, they can be decanted and transported to another site to be installed and used once again. Some of our buildings have been decanted and transported to a new site several times, proving that our approach to design and off-site construction can prolong the useable life of a building and help minimise its impact on the environment.

5. Recycle

We avoid using materials that cannot be easily recycled, such as concrete, favouring recyclable construction materials like steel that can be fully recycled at the end of their usable life. Our deliberate choice of recyclable materials means the building fabric becomes part of the materials we use to manufacture our new infrastructure technology instead of ending up in landfill.

Sustainable Data Centre Design

Low PUE and WUE

Our designs achieve Power Usage Effectiveness (PUEPower Utilization Effectiveness (PUE) is the primary metric for measuring the energy efficiency of a data centre. Calculated as the ratio of total facility energy to IT equipment energy, it provides insights into how much power is used for non-IT functions, such as cooling and po...Learn more) and Water Usage Effectiveness (WUEWater Usage Effectiveness (WUE) is a sustainability metric for data centres that measures the amount of water used annually relative to the IT energy consumption. It is calculated by dividing the total water consumption (liters) by the IT equipment energy usage (kWh). A low WUE i...Learn more) metrics well below industry averages, ensuring energy and water efficiency in the long term.

Greener Materials

By using steel structures and removing the use of concrete, BladeRoom ensures that the design phase supports sustainable construction practices.

Fabric First

Our choice of materials produces mission critical infrastructure with industry leading thermal transmittance and air permeability performance. It also reduces the quantity of materials required by selecting ones that are more appropriate for a factory assembly process, minimising waste.

Integrated Cooling Solutions

Cooling is one of the most critical aspects of data centre design, and BladeRoom ensures that each facility is equipped with the right cooling system to maximise efficiency. We integrate direct and indirect fresh-air cooling, as well as liquid coolingLiquid Cooling is a thermal management strategy where a liquid coolant absorbs heat from servers and IT equipment, efficiently dissipating it through heat exchangers or other mechanisms. It is particularly effective for high-density workloads and energy-intensive applications. Li...Learn more solutions for high-density environments.

Air Cooling: Our systems optimise airflow using fresh air, reducing reliance on mechanical cooling and lowering energy and water consumption.

Liquid CoolingLiquid Cooling is a thermal management strategy where a liquid coolant absorbs heat from servers and IT equipment, efficiently dissipating it through heat exchangers or other mechanisms. It is particularly effective for high-density workloads and energy-intensive applications. Li...Learn more: For high-density computing workloads like AIArtificial Intelligence (AI) involves the development of computer systems capable of performing tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, and natural language understanding. AI technologies include machine learning (ML), deep l...Learn more and high-performance computing (HPC), liquid coolingLiquid Cooling is a thermal management strategy where a liquid coolant absorbs heat from servers and IT equipment, efficiently dissipating it through heat exchangers or other mechanisms. It is particularly effective for high-density workloads and energy-intensive applications. Li...Learn more is integrated into the design to ensure efficient heat management and energy savings.

Data Centre Cooling

Designed for Off-Site Construction

Our design process is optimised for off-site construction, ensuring that each facility can be manufactured and assembled rapidly, with minimal on-site work required. This reduces construction times, improves quality, and minimises disruptions during the build.

Pre-Engineered for Speed: Designs are developed with pre-engineered components that streamline construction and reduce the time-to-market.

Seamless Integration: Every design is crafted to ensure a seamless transition from the design phase to off-site manufacturing, ensuring that the final facility is delivered on time and within budget.

Data Centre Construction

Frequently Asked Questions

What is theWhat is Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), and why is it important in data centre design?

PUEPower Utilization Effectiveness (PUE) is the primary metric for measuring the energy efficiency of a data centre. Calculated as the ratio of total facility energy to IT equipment energy, it provides insights into how much power is used for non-IT functions, such as cooling and po...Learn more is a measure of data centre energy efficiency. It is the ratio of total energy used by the facility to the energy used by IT equipment. A lower PUEPower Utilization Effectiveness (PUE) is the primary metric for measuring the energy efficiency of a data centre. Calculated as the ratio of total facility energy to IT equipment energy, it provides insights into how much power is used for non-IT functions, such as cooling and po...Learn more indicates better energy efficiency. BladeRoom designs data centres to achieve industry-leading PUEPower Utilization Effectiveness (PUE) is the primary metric for measuring the energy efficiency of a data centre. Calculated as the ratio of total facility energy to IT equipment energy, it provides insights into how much power is used for non-IT functions, such as cooling and po...Learn more, reducing energy consumption and operational costs.

How does BladeRoom ensure sustainability in its data centre designs?

BladeRoom integrates sustainability into every design by using low-carbon materials, such as steel, and optimising cooling systems like fresh-air and liquid coolingLiquid Cooling is a thermal management strategy where a liquid coolant absorbs heat from servers and IT equipment, efficiently dissipating it through heat exchangers or other mechanisms. It is particularly effective for high-density workloads and energy-intensive applications. Li...Learn more. Our designs also achieve low PUEPower Utilization Effectiveness (PUE) is the primary metric for measuring the energy efficiency of a data centre. Calculated as the ratio of total facility energy to IT equipment energy, it provides insights into how much power is used for non-IT functions, such as cooling and po...Learn more and WUEWater Usage Effectiveness (WUE) is a sustainability metric for data centres that measures the amount of water used annually relative to the IT energy consumption. It is calculated by dividing the total water consumption (liters) by the IT equipment energy usage (kWh). A low WUE i...Learn more, ensuring the facility operates efficiently with minimal environmental impact.

What is data centre architecture?

Data centre architectureData centre architecture refers to the design and structure of a data centre, encompassing its physical layout, infrastructure, and operational systems. It includes the arrangement of server racks, cooling systems, power distribution, and networking equipment, as well as the faci...Learn more involves designing the IT infrastructure layout to optimise performance and scalability. BladeRoom ensures seamless integration of servers, networking equipment, and cooling systems, providing an efficient and scalable architecture that supports your business’s growth.

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