Data centres

Data centre steel is not structurally demanding and is programme-critical, which is an unusual combination. The frames, plant platforms, generator and chiller yards, containment and cable tray supports and mezzanines are all ordinary structures. What is not ordinary is that the building has a commissioning date the business has already sold against, and steel sits early enough in the sequence to move it.

Repeatability is the whole strategy

These campuses build the same hall several times. The value of getting the first one detailed properly — standard connections, a marking convention that survives a repeat, a bill of material that can be re-issued rather than rebuilt — compounds across every subsequent building. Work that treats building two as a fresh job throws that away.

The steel waits on the MEP model

Containment and equipment support cannot be finalised before the services are, and the services are rarely finished when the programme says the steel must be released. The practical answer is release by lot: the structure whose loads are known goes first, and the supports that depend on late data are isolated into their own release rather than holding the frame. That requires the model to be federated and the lot boundaries to be deliberate — see BIM & digital delivery.

Delivery sequence is the deliverable

On a site erecting continuously, a truck arriving with the right tonnage in the wrong order costs a day. Load plans are built from the erection sequence backwards.