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a national hot bed for data center growth, the city of
san antonio is home to some of the country’s most
high-profile mission critical facilities. so when local
utility provider Cps energy set out to design and build
a new 75,000 sq. ft. flagship mission critical facility of its
own, called “
Project eCho
,” it needed to champion
reliability, redundancy, scalability and flexibility.
but, challenges were abundant. for one, Cps energy
prides itself on being a steward of energy conservation.
Considering the City of san antonio’s continual pursuit
of data center projects (and with as many as 10 stand-
alone data centers already within five miles of the
facility), eCho had to lead by example — to be a real
showcase of energy efficiency. additionally, eCho
needed to accommodate the next 20 years of growth
while simultaneously functioning today as a redundant
site for two existing Cps energy control/data centers.
the solution was a single overarching principle that
guided the entire project from start to finish:
collaborative design.
IT ALL BEGAN WITH A
DESIGN CHARRETTE
in order to meet the project’s goals from both an Mep
and technology systems perspective, syska hennessy
Group worked collaboratively with the entire building
team — from architects to end users and every building
team member in between — beginning with a pre-
design charrette.
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