Designing the Cloud: Power, Infrastructure, and the Role of Architects

By bringing people together within the Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operations (AECO) industry and experts from AI-related fields, the ‘AI Salon’ series hopes to foster productive discussion and explore solutions for leveraging AI technology in AECO by bridging the gap between practice and academic research. This four-part series aims to create archives and, ultimately, publications / whitepapers from these salon sessions to share with the broader public and help push the industry into wider technology adoption.

Our first AI+A salon session of 2026 examines the physical infrastructure behind AI, treating the data center as a critical architectural and urban typology. As facilities scale to gigawatt levels and intersect more directly with regional energy systems, new questions have emerged around siting, grid integration, modular construction, and long-term urban impact.

The panel will explore where architects meaningfully contribute within this evolving ecosystem and where the technical, operational, and energy realities shape outcomes. How can these high-demand infrastructures align more productively with cities, communities, and climate goals?

Speakers:
Dr. Marina Otero Verzier, Lecturer in Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design 
Iain Macdonald, Principal, Future Energy Systems Development Lead, HKS LINE
Nicolas Rader, COO, Flexnode

Moderators:
Xenia Adjoubei Kwan, Principal, Systematica; Lecturer, Pratt Institute
Xinru Liu, Design Technologist, HLW; AI+A Salon Series Curator, AIANY Future of Practice Committee

About the Speakers:
Dr. Marina Otero Verzier is an architect and researcher, currently teaching at Harvard GSD. She has led Data Mourning at Columbia GSAPP, an initiative focused on digital infrastructures and climate catastrophe. She collaborated with the DIPC Supercomputing Centre to develop alternative data storage models such as the Computational Compost project. Otero also participated as an expert in the development of Chile’s first National Plan for Data Centres, together with Resistencia SocioAmbiental-Quilicura and other local communities. She is the author of En las Profundidades de la Nube (2024), a book about data storage and sovereignty in the age of AI. In 2022, Otero received the Wheelwright Prize from the Harvard GSD for her project on the future of data storage.

Iain Macdonald is a Principal with HKS LINE (EmTech x Energy). He has been designing data centers and networks for 25+ years and nuclear power plants for two decades. His current focus is on Edge and Urban Hyperscale Data Centers, Small Modular Reactors and the Next Gen City. He is Professor of Practice at Thunderbird - ASU and Research Associate, Nuclear Energy Data Center Nexus at MIT, having previously been Professor IUS at ArtEZ University (NL) and Head of the School of Architecture at NTU (UK).

Nicolas Rader is the COO at Flexnode. Flexnode is a venture-backed startup that designs, builds, and operates AI factories. Rader has spent his career creating and scaling design-focused, technology-forward businesses. His experience spans all stages and types of companies from co-founding, Daybase, a retail-based co-working concept, to leading the global design team for enterprise business at WeWork, through collaborating on a strategic pivot at a public company, Sonder, a hospitality company focused on multi-family properties. Early in his career as an architect, he spent a decade at international design firm Snøhetta where he opened and managed the San Francisco studio for three years. 

Xenia Adjoubei Kwan is an architect, researcher, and educator working across urbanism, mobility, and ecology. She is a Principal at Systematica in New York City, teaches urban design at Pratt Institute, and is Senior Researcher at the Global Free Unit and the Inclusive Ecologies Incubator. She is also a member of the Urban Design Forum’s Local Circle and the active member of the AIANY Future of Practice Committee.

Xinru Liu is a registered architect and creative technologist exploring how AI and XR are reshaping design practice. Her work focuses on building experimental workflows and tools that expand creative agency and support new ways of working across the architecture industry. She is a core organizer of the AI Salon series, a platform for conversations about the future of architecture in the age of artificial intelligence.