The Shadow Archive: The Resurrection of Abandoned Industrial Infrastructure

Abstract

As the world moves toward an increasingly predominant dependency on digital technology and digital information, digital data’s safeguard and accessibility become increasingly global and societal issues. As analogue methods of storing and representing data become absorbed and outmoded by their digital variants, it is timely, now, to consider the architectural response to safeguarding and preserving this information against future damage or loss by isolating data from the internet itself.

In recognition of the morphotic nature of digital information, attempts to contain and protect digital data must also allow for the constant format changes typical of digital data. By providing a solution to enable the possibilities of reading outmoded and outdated data formats, public accessibility and retrievability of the data remains available. The safeguarding of this information is also imperative, protecting data from internet crashes, hardware failure, hacking or viruses.

An abandoned cooling tower in Charleroi, Belgium has been identified as an appropriate site to carry out this investigation of a digital archive due to its considerable size and durability. This investigation argues that these obsolete infrastructures are ideal vehicles for the conception of speculative architectural interventions necessary for the near-future. It also argues that these infrastructures have an important heritage, and implementing a new architectural program within such buildings will enable their history and story to be told and explored. Through this investigation, the building and its story become contributory to the ongoing narrative of the digital archive.