Colour Into the Cloud – LIFE AS A HUMAN

When you back up your business data to the cloud, it lives in a data center . These telco hotels are popping up all over Canada. They are windowless buildings ringed with generators and cooling fans and filled with internet servers which are computers with huge memory banks.

What struck me as being odd on my visit to TeraGo Networks colocation services facility in Toronto is how this black and white business interior has artfully constructed a distinct red motif to lessen the visual monotony of the work space. Somebody somewhere has put some thought into making this place a little more aesthetically friendly by deliberately bringing this single colour into the room. Indeed, I’d speculate that a professional designer has been paid good money to decorate this data center! Imagine being an interior decorator and putting pictures of this high tech work space in your portfolio? But just Look at what they did, and you’ll see it’s worth some praise.

This decorator brought colour into the cloud

I didn’t realize what was going on until I spotted the bright red computer carts in the rack room. IT workers use these terminals to check the status of their equipment locked in rows of well ventilated black metal cabinets on white tile floors. Without this insertion of colour, working in here all day long would be a completely black & white experience. The colour red matches the fire alarms, pipe elbows, and fire code signage which really stands out in this monochromatic grey world. I suppose as TeraGo Networks just bought this place from Data Centers Canada they inherited their sense of style. The tool chests in the rack rooms also have lovely red handles and trim. The work stations outside the server rooms are also dressed in red. The back splash, high chairs, wall clocks and even the trim around the signage is bright red.

There are no kitchens in a data storage facility.

Data center administrators don’t allow IT workers to bring food or drink into the building, so there isn’t much comfort to be found in the room they call ‘The Kitchen’. There is no fridge, oven or microwave; they’ve even removed the sink! But what remains is black and white with highlights in the same colour red.

The Meeting Room

The central meeting room is where this decorator really outdid herself, Without offering any distraction, the interior designer has artfully brought the red motif into the room in the most subtle and yet powerful way possible. The picture of the red double-decker bus in the black & white London fog suggests an exciting progress through history, and the red potted plastic green plants on the window ledge symbolize a vibrant, healthy workplace. On the opposite wall is another picture showing the bus making its way alongside other old cars over the bridge on a ‘cloudy’ day. A red bus through the cloud, how perfect is that?

Photo Credits

Robert Campbell Artist Bio

Rob Campbell is a freelance nature writer and author living in Toronto, Canada. Son of a beekeeper, Rob is keenly interested in using technology to improve conservation and the preservation of our natural world; he funds projects that use gadgets to study and improve the lives of insects (honeybees) and animals around us, especially those unfortunate creatures that are, like so many of us humans, stuck living in the city.