Niklas Maak: Servermanifest: Architecture of the Data Centre and the Future of Democracy Paperback – 30 June 2022

The core question addressed in the book is who owns the data and what it is being done with it, but also what greater social benefits data centers (DCs) design should tackle. In this sense, critical opinion about nowadays lack of quality approach to DC-s design, resulting in immense generic hangars, is clearly expressed . The author proves a strong point about how facelessness of any typology generates no public value, but also touches the base by questioning how we can change that, and what political regulations are to be considered. The book also skims nicely into historical case examples, which represent how by designing different architectural typologies, architects tried to have a beneficial effect on society. Carefully chosen beacon projects serve the reader (most probably architect) as a good yardstick in shaping their own mindset, one that should add a social value to a design of server farms. Important takeaways are: DC-s should be a place of visible happening, generator of positive changes in a society, and therefore, what happens inside them, must be transparent and (politically) regulated . The author strongly believes, and nicely reasons that it is inevitable and possible to design physical spaces, that are not merely another form of aestheticaticization, but serve a public good. A pretty inspiring reading, almost giving the impression as if Tschumi's 'Advertisements for Architecture' is rooted somewhere deeply within. I would recommend to anyone interested in architectural criticism, ethics and sustainability, when it comes to data storage and processing. Aside that, one could imagine that readers of this book would also enjoy reading Raj Patel's "The Value of Nothing".