Data centers are very important to online companies such as Google. Data centers store massive amounts of data but these data center buildings are quite boring. To bring some life to these data centers, Google has hired a few artists who have painted the outside walls of these structures.
Joe Kava, the VP of Google Data Centers, says that the company's data centers receive a tremendous number of requests each day for searching the web, sharing photos, and more. However, very few people know how these data centers manage data flows.
"Because these buildings typically aren't much to look at, people usually don't-and rarely learn about the incredible structures and people inside who make so much of modern life possible," says Kava. "To begin to change that, we created the Data Center Mural Project: a partnership with artists to bring a bit of the magic from the inside of our data centers to the outside."
Kava says that as part of the Data Center Mural Project, the exteriors of two data centers have received uplifts.
Jenny Odell has designed the mural at Google's data center in Oklahoma's Mayes County. The artist designed four circular collages using images she collected from Google Maps. Individual circles have different themes including swimming pools, salt ponds, circular farms and wastewater treatment plants.
Another mural at the data center at St. Ghislain, Belgium, was created by Oli-B. The mural at this data center incorporates objects, animals and people from inside the data center and from the surrounding town.
"It may start with a sketch by Oli-B, but it takes a team to transform the Google data center in St. Ghislain into a vibrant mural," says Google.
The mural art will soon make its way to two more Google data centers at Dublin, Ireland and Council Bluffs, Iowa. According to the Data Center Mural Project website, artist Fuchsia Macaree will design and create the mural at Dublin, and Gary Kelley will be responsible for the mural at Council Bluffs.
The company is also planning the same for 11 other data centers located across the world. It remains to be seen what designs artists have in mind for the exteriors of other Google data centers.
Check out a short video about Google's Data Center Mural Project.
