Earth, Wind, and Fiber
Penny White Project Fund By Zoe Holland and McKenna Mitchell Advisor: Paola Sturla This project seeks to comprehend and legitimize the physical infrastructure that facilitates data storage and internet access through an in-depth analysis of the “data port city” of Marseille. We argue that the digital world is an infrastructure that landscape architects should be tasked with understanding, critiquing and subverting. The ethereal qualities attributed to the digital sphere have in many ways masked the physicality of the vast networks of fiber optic cables, internet exchanges and data centers that allow these systems to run. Our research centered around tours of several important data centers in Marseille which connect directly to Marseille’s collection of subsea cable landings. Just as the city was once one of the most important trade hubs in Europe, it now serves as a global hub for the storage and dissemination of data.