HDR designs two NEXTDC colocation data centres

Engineering, architecture and construction design firm HDR has designed two NEXTDC colocation data centres in Melbourne, aiming to house Australia’s largest cloud ecosystem.

The data centres include M3 Melbourne, a 100,000m² data centre in West Footscray, and M2 Melbourne, a 16,000m² data centre in Tullamarine.

Both were constructed by Kapitol Group, and will collectively deliver 210 megawatts of critical IT infrastructure to enterprise and government in a climate of unprecedented digital innovation.

“Utilising a data-driven design methodology, we have succeeded in delivering two purpose-built facilities, using modular and adaptable solutions, that will accelerate industry growth,” HDR project leader Sam Faigen said.

Designing high-performance, resilient and scalable infrastructure at speed is no easy feat.”

HDR said stage 1 of the 150MW plan is complete, whereby M3 now operates as a colocation facility for retail, enterprise and hyperscale customers.

It has designed its administrative offices, collaboration and breakout spaces and data halls, and has incorporated flora into its external architecture.

Its location is close to major electricity substations, and is at the junction between large industrial developments and low-scale residential dwellings, 10 km from Melbourne’s CBD.

“The building form has been set 20-metres back into the site to respect the neighbours,” Faigen said.

“This setback zone features densely plated swales, trees and ‘pocket parks’, as well as a community café along the tree-lined perimeter, that gently transitions the site context from residential to industrial and puts community well-being first.”

HDR also made sure M3 was engineered to meet Uptime Institute’s Tier IV resilient standards by Arup.

The data centre has also achieved a high Built Environment Sustainability Scorecard (BESS), a sustainability assessment tool created by local governments in Victoria, as well as an efficient power usage effectiveness (PUE) score of 1.29.

HDR also designed M3’s sister facility M2, which is a 60MW campus and workspace located near Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport and its surrounding transport and telecommunications network.

Like M3, M2 comprises HDR-designed commercial office spaces, meeting rooms, training spaces, an auditorium and customer amenity.

HDR said it utilised computational and generative design to rapidly evaluate manipulated parameters in real-time and test the specific programmatic needs of the project.

M2 was engineered by Aurecon and has achieved Uptime Institute’s Tier IV Gold Certification for Operational Sustainability and like M3, also has a PUE of 1.29.

With the ever-increasing digitisation of work, life and play, data centres are becoming fundamental infrastructure in our built environment,” HDR’s national director of education and science Graeme Spencer said.

“By thoughtfully integrating deeply technical, data-driven processes, while still maintaining focus on community well-being, we have conceived two resilient, sustainable and high-performance campuses that enable digital transformation.”

“The Australian digital economy is growing rapidly, accelerating the need for interconnected cloud services, sovereign secured, and sustainable solutions enabled by Tier IV certified facilities to assure business resilience,” NEXTDC chief executive and managing director Craig Scroggie said.

“As a market leader, NEXTDC is responding to market demand by expanding our digital infrastructure platform.”