DATA CENTER WITH PUBLIC RECREATION AMENITY

HIGH TECH HOT TUB (PROPOSAL)
Chicago, Illinois
2015

Clare Lyster Urbanism and Architecture

Piggybacking Tactics
Inhabit a Niche
Capture a Waste Stream

Waste-stream piggybackings are inherently logistical in nature, as the material or energy output of one activity becomes the input for another. HIGH TECH HOT TUB, a design proposal by Clare Lyster Urbanism and Architecture (CLUAA), operates in this logistical manner; it elevates a somewhat common tactic of ecologically minded waste-energy capture by creatively hitching a municipal landscape of leisure to an otherwise unseen urban utility. This proposal for Chicago’s waterfront consists of a large data hub built within an abandoned construction pit—the basement and foundation of Santiago Calatrava’s unrealized Chicago Spire. The data center is cooled by water pumped in from Lake Michigan, which in turn circulates its waste heat to the surface to warm a public hot tub, generating the thermal oasis at the heart of CLUAA’s proposed waterfront park. Lyster’s project demonstrates the potential of both waste-stream capture and niche-occupation tactics to spur innovative approaches to resource optimization and public-space piggybackings.