STORIES
Campus Data Center DATA4, Settimo Milanese (MI)
Year of construction: 2013 — ongoing (completion scheduled for 2027).
In 2013 Generale Prefabbricati was called to study, design and build one of the first operative Data Centres in Italy, based on nothing more than performance indications requested by the client Data4, an international operator based in France, with branches in other European countries (Italy, France, Spain, Luxembourg, Germany and Poland).
Throughout this long project the role of Generali Prefabbricati has not been limited to prefabricated structure installation. The company has also implemented a full range of services in the civil field, from foundations to internal and external finishing details, as a veritable General Contractor, delivering a turnkey project.
The project is being implemented in the former Italtel Industrial Area, strategic due to its proximity to the Enel/Terna electric power station and its connection to one of Italy’s most important optical fibre data transmission lines. Since 2013, on the Milan DATA4 campus alone we have built and delivered 9 Data Centre buildings, amounting to 60 MW and 84,000 sqm of indoor surface area in total, an office building (the Italian headquarters of Data4) and a high voltage cabin exclusively for campus use. A further 6 Data Centres are currently under construction, for an additional 80MW and 135,000 sqm of surface area. In this sector, increasingly stringent delivery times go hand-in-hand with the development of ever more advanced engineering applied to enable continuous progress in installation projects.
Important operative safety and continuous operation requirements for the Tier 4 building led us to develop a very special structural technique, different from most Data Centres in Italy:
- A crawlspace, 1.80 m in height, ensures operation in full safety conditions.
- Open space large span (around 22m) data halls but with high load and fire resistance capacity, optimising the use of halls for rack storage.
- Generators positioned inside the building.
- Seismic-resistant prefabricated structure without the insertion of nuclei and castings on site.
The success of these technical solutions has also led to the involvement of Generale Prefabbricati in the construction of the Marcoussis Campus (Paris), where 14 Data Centres were built, for a total of 65MW and 115,000 sqm of indoor surface area.
Low Carbon
Over time all this work has converged towards Generale Prefabbricati’s pathway towards environmentally innovative solutions, thanks to research into new low environmental impact solutions for use in the production of prefabricated elements and more. This research is pursued thanks to the partnership of a specific team of the company’s very own technicians and the two main suppliers of cement and additives, Italcementi (Heidelberg Cement Group) and Basf.
This partnership has already led to the use of Low Carbon cement for foundations, and the production of the Low Carbon Hollow-Core Slab, cutting CO2 by around 18%. This result has been made possible thanks to the high performance of Generale Prefabbricati products, pre-stressed large span elements and Spiroll hollow-core slabs, and the experience acquired by our technical departments in this sector.