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As the September evening inched along, the line of residents waiting their turn for the microphone held steady. Filing down the auditorium aisles at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, they were armed with questions about a new gas plant slated for their community. Sitting quietly in the audience was John Dudash. For decades, hes lived in Homer City, a southwestern Pennsylvania town that was once home to the largest coal-fired power plant in the state. The plant, which shares its name with the town, closed nearly three years ago after years of financial distress. Dudash, 89, has lived in the shadow of its smokestackssaid to be the tallest in the country before they were demolishedfor much of his life. At its peak, the Homer City power plant employed hundreds of people and could deploy about 2 gigawatts of energy, enough to power 2 million homes. Join our email list to get the stories that mainstream news is overlooking.Sign up for Capital & Mains newsletter. It was also a major source of air pollution, spewing sulfur dioxide and mercury, both of which pose serious health risks. Today, Dudash wonders if the pollution might have exacerbated the lung issues that claimed his wifes life six years ago. The proposed gas plant, expected to be up and running in 2027, will replace the old coal-fired power station, but with more than double the energy output4.5 gigawatts of energy. The new plant also will have the potential to emit 17.5 million tons of planet-heating greenhouse gasses per year, the equivalent of putting millions of cars on the road. And it will serve a new purpose: Rather than primarily sending electrons to the regional grid to power homes or businesses, the new power plant will exist mainly to feed data centers planned on the site. As the hearing wore on that September night, Dudash, a conservationist, did not stand to speak; instead, he sat quietly, taking mental notes. The next morning, he emailed two staffers at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. First of all, the project will not be stopped, he began, with resignation. He went on to offer a few caveatsamong them, advice about air monitoring. His letter reached the agency alongside more than 550 comments on a key air permit for the proposed plant, a testament to the projects complexity. After the permit was approved November 18, Dudashs prediction began to look remarkably accuratethough the Homer City plant still has about a dozen additional permits awaiting approval before the project can be completed, including one that would impact several acres of wetlands and hundreds of feet of a local stream. Though it is among many energy sites popping up to power the artificial intelligence boom across Pennsylvania, the Homer City facility is unique for its size, its advertised economic potentialthe owners have promised the project will generate more than 10,000 construction-related jobsand for its likely environmental impact. It has earned the backing of President Donald Trump, who called it the largest plant of its kind in the world, a distinction its owners could not verify. There was a buzz in town in late October when Jared Kushner, Trumps son-in-law, visited, though it was unclear what drew him to Homer City. I dont really trust the people who are coming in to build and run the place, Dudash said. I do not agree with the artificial intelligence portion of it. Theyre going to have to sacrifice the environment for these jobs, he added. In Appalachia, weve been doing that for years. When the old plant sputtered to a close in 2023, it left the surrounding communitywhich was built on the local abundance of coalin search of an economic lifeline. Now the data center boom sweeping the country brings promise of such a rebirth for communities like Homer City, though this promise is one that some experts say may be less than billed. And, it comes with risks. The new power plant will be much larger than its predecessor and is permitted to emit more than twice as much of some pollutants as its predecessor did. The data center, or centers, it powers would also consume a tremendous amount of waterperhaps more than its host townships can spare, some fear. A mural adorns the Disobedient Spirits distillery building on Main Street in Homer City, Pennsylvania. [Photo: Audrey Carleton] Artificial intelligence requires vast amounts of electricity and has the potential to offer a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry. Though some in the community are sanguine about the promise of jobs, experts say the reality for many living around data centers may fall short. Some are left wondering exactly who the new plant is forthem or some faraway tech companies. The Homer City project is far from alone in its emergence: The nonprofit Fractracker has identified 39 planned data centers in the works across Pennsylvania. Tech companies like Microsoft and Amazon are moving in, alongside others intrigued by the states rich legacy of power production, deep naural gas reserves and generous subsidies. In July, Republican Senator Dave McCormick, from eastern Pennsylvania, held a conference in Pittsburgh during which companies announced more than $90 billion in data center investments and related energy infrastructure. This tech boom largely has bipartisan support, including from Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who said at a June press conference that he is committed to ensuring the future of AI runs right through Pennsylvania. Legislators in Harrisburg, meanwhile, are introducing bills that would both spur the burgeoning industry and give it guardrails. The extent to which the Homer City facilitys owners have lobbied for supportive legislation is not clear. The companys lobbying registration with the Pennsylvania Department of State goes back only to January 2025. It has, however, spent at the local level. In November, for instance, the company gave a community nonprofit $25,000 for a holiday food drive. It also urged state utility regulators, who are drafting a policy on data centers, to issue one that does not saddle data centers with costs that might push them out of state. Meanwhile, communities are pushing back and the environmental nonprofit Food & Water Watch recently called for a nationwide moratorium on new data center construction. More than 200 other groups later joined them in making such a plea to Congress. On the ground in Homer City, a coalition of neighbors have formed Concerned Residents of Western Pennsylvania to oppose the project. The Homer City proposal is the brainchild of the same private equity owners that closed the plant in 2023after years of financial difficulty and two bankruptcies. Two firms own close to 90% of the plant, with New York City-based Knighthead Capital Management holding the vast majority of that. Its part of a wave of private equity investment in the data center industry. In March, the owners, operating under an LLC called Homer City Redevelopment, toppled the plants signature smokestacks. A few weeks later, they announced that the plant would reopen with a data center customer, or suite of customers, to be announced as soon as 2026. Critics fear the new plant will require a lot more water than its predecessor. The supercomputers that data centers house whirr away around the clock, and need to be routinely cooled down. Some data center companies have introduced recycled water into their systems. Homer City Redevelopment has not said if their data center clients will be among them. In 2014, U.S. data centers used 21.2 billion liters of water, enough to fill nearly 9,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. That number tripled by 2023, with the vast majority of the water consumed by hyperscale, or large, facilities like Homer City. In states like Colorado, where water use has, for decades, been meticulously planned and negotiated, data centers are threatening to strain such finely tuned systems. Dudash, the longtime Homer City resident, is concerned about a similar fate. Im not sure how theyre going to handle the water, he told Capital & Main after the September hearing. The power plant has, since 1968, been allotted an uncapped amount of water from Two Lick Reservoir, a 5-billion-gallon, dammed-off portion of a creek that the plants former owners built explicitly for its use. The power plant shares the water with a utility that serves two local communitiesIndiana borough and the broader White Townshipas part of a 1988 drought management plan to prevent and respond to catastrophic weather conditions. The borough of Homer City gets its water from Yellow Creek, a tributary of Two Lick Creek, which serves the reservoir and picks up the slack in the event of a drought. Should the Two Lick Creek Reservoir be emptied, [the water utility] would not be able to provide sufficient water to protect public health and safety in their service area, the drought management plan reads. The Two Lick Reservoir in Indiana County [Photo: Audrey Carleton] In 1985, the delicate system between Two Lick and Yellow Creek was strained when the then-Homer City plant drew so much water from the reservoir that it led to a drought. Had a significant rainfall not occurred . . . the reservoir may have faced total depletion, the drought management plan reads. A report from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection shows that the water utility drawing from Two Lick has, in recent years, routinely used nearly half its allotted amount. But critics fear that allocation could be at risk once a data center opens and starts drawing water. Robin Gorman, a spokesperson for Homer City Redevelopment, told Capital & Main that it plans to leave cooling and water-use decisions to its data center clients, making it unclear how much water will be needed to keep all the computers running, or where that water would come from. Rob Nymick, Hoer Citys former borough manager, who serves as manager of the Central Indiana County Water Authority, told Capital & Main that he is confident local municipalities can share water resources with the planned gas plant. But the data centers could be a different story. I do know that data centers do require a tremendous amount of water, Nymick said. Thats something we probably cannot provide. Nymick said that community officials are operating with limited knowledge, and that during the handful of meetings they have held with Homer City Redevelopment, The only thing that they wanted to discuss is the actual power plant. Eric Barker, who grew up in Homer City, attended the September hearing with restrained optimism. The power plant was a source of pride and is a source of pride for the community, he said. Theres not too many large employers in Indiana County, he added. But he found little comfort at the September hearing. The Department of Environmental Protection seemed woefully, woefully, comically underprepared, Barker said, citing a response he received to a question about the types of pollutants that would increase under the new Homer City proposal, compared to what was emitted by the old plant. Barker was told the agency would look into it and get back to him. Some questions and concerns were raised at the public meeting regarding the plan approval about matters beyond the limited scope of the meeting, said Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson Tom Decker in a statement. Interested parties are encouraged to look to the DEPs extensive website, including its community page dedicated to the Homer City project, for resources addressing such questions and concerns. Despite the questions that followed, the department, on the whole, signaled satisfaction with the Homer City plants air permit application at the hearing. Whats being proposed is what we consider state-of-the-art emission controls, said Dave Balog, environmental engineering manager at the departments northwest regional office. Environmental nonprofits Citizens for Pennsylvanias Future, Clean Air Council, the Sierra Club and Earthjustice countered in a 44-page comment on a draft of the key air permit that the application does not incorporate the best tools for mitigating pollutants such as ammonia, which is known to cause respiratory issues and other health risks. The Department of Environmental Protection agreed with Homer City Redevelopments analyses of its best available technology, and the permit was granted. * * * As Homer Citys smokestacks imploded and fell to the ground last March, leaving only a gray cloud, Dudash wondered what particulates might be in the dusty mix. While there were rumors in town that asbestos might be among them, the Department of Environmental Protection told Capital & Main that the site was inspected for the substance before it was demolished and none was found. Still, coal dust, fly ash, and silica particulates are all possible during such implosions, an agency representative said. In the months since, residents have complained of repeated blasts from the site rattling their houses. As of January, the blasts occurred daily. But the particulates that drift from the old plant during the blasts may pale in comparison to the carbon dioxide emissions the new power plant is predicted to release. The key air permit the Department of Environmental Protection issued to the facility allows it to release up to 17.5 million tons of the heat-trapping gas, like carbon dioxide, per yearthe equivalent of putting 3.6 million gas-powered vehicles on the road annually. In 2010, according to federal data, the plant emitted just over 11 million tons of greenhouse gasses. In 2023, when it was operating at a fraction of its capacity, it emitted 1.3 million. In their comment to regulators, the nonprofit environmental groups said that the carbon dioxide emissions would be triple those of any polluting facility in the state, representing 6% of Pennsylvanias total emissions. The new plant will emit sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides, two classes of respiratory irritants, but at rates lower than the old plant. The nonprofit Clean Air Council condemned regulators issuance of the air permit, calling it a death sentence. Along with PennFuture and the Sierra Club, the Council appealed the permit in December. The owners said the emissions from the new plant will result in a 35% to 40% reduction in carbon dioxide compared to the old plant, but the calculation does not account for the new plants larger size. Instead, it is per-megawatt hour, meaning per unit of energy generated. Natural gas is less emissions-intensive than coal when burned, but because the Homer City plant will generate more than double the energy of its predecessor, its overall emissions profile is expected to be higher. As the state grapples with extreme weather events such as flooding due to global warming, locking in carbon emissions is the wrong direction to go, the environmental nonprofits argue. On an annual basis, the plant will be permitted to emit hundreds of tons of respiratory irritants like particulate matter and nitrogen oxides, and dozens of tons of formaldehyde, a carcinogen. It will also emit health-harming compounds like toluene, xylene, and ethylbenzene. Additional emissions are likely to come from the natural gas drilling that will be required to power the site. In 2024, Nymick told Capital & Main that the borough was struggling to find a new economic engine. Were fighting for our survival, he said at the time. Data center industry advocates contend that the data center gold rush will be a boon for communities like Homer City, where boarded-up storefronts line the main street. For every one job in a data center, six jobs are supported elsewhere in the economy, said Dan Diorio, vice president of state policy for the Data Center Coalition, an industry trade group, at a hearing in the state Capitol in October. The municipal offices of Homer City Borough [Photo: Audrey Carleton] Sean OLeary, senior researcher at the nonprofit think tank the Ohio River Valley Institute, said the reality isnt that rosy. The average data center employs as few as 0 people and as many as 110, per his own calculations based in part on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The computers inside them can generally run on their own with limited maintenance. Even in a rural county like Indiana, OLeary said, One hundred is a rounding error. It just doesnt matter. It doesnt matter if theyre paid $200,000 a year. Its not enough to make a significant change in the status of the local economy. In a recent report on the data center boom in natural gas economies in Appalachia, OLeary said gas-powered data centers represent the combination of three non-labor-intensive industriesfracking, power plants and data centers. Stacking [them] on top of each other does not alter the underlying dynamic which ties them together. Ron Airhart, a former coal miner and executive assistant to the secretary-treasurer of the United Mine Workers of America, is more optimistic about the economic potential of the new Homer City facility. Still, he concedes that it will never be what the old plant was. Yes, building a gas fired power plant is going to create a lot of construction jobs, theres no doubt about that, he said. But once its done, how many actual employees are you going to have working there? He quickly added, But, Im glad they are doing something with the old power plant there. Gorman told Capital & Main that Homer City Redevelopment and its construction partner, Kiewit, are planning to hire from local unions and building trades. They foresee 10,000 construction jobs. They also anticipate the site will create 1,000 direct and indirect permanent jobs, including those hired at the facility itself and those brought aboard for supportive positions, such as suppliers. From start to finish, the Homer City Energy Campus will be developed in partnership with skilled local craftsmen and will bring quality, good-paying jobs back to the Homer City community, Gorman said. OLeary said the jobs numbers such as those projected by the Data Center Coalition are inflated, similar to the employment projections made before the fracking boom in rural Appalachia. He said such projections are a detriment to communities, in part because taxpayers shoulder the cost of subsidies to attract the industry to the state, such as a sales and use tax exemption for data centers that Pennsylvania codified in 2021. Shapiro has estimated that the credit will expand to about $50 million per year for the next five years. Local residents are also burdened with rising utility bills. The surging demand for electricity is straining the regions power supplies, increasing what utilities pay for electricity. New power plants coming onto the grid must install transmission equipment, the costs of which they share with consumers. These economic factors, in sum, could outweigh the benefits of the new jobs the data center creates, OLeary said. Earlier this year, the grid operator for the region that encompasses Pennsylvania, PJM, saw electricity prices surge by roughly 1,000% from two years ago. Some of that cost is expected to be passed on to customers. We have a problem, and that problem is real, and it is exponential electricity load growth causing exponential price increases for consumers, said Patrick Cicero, former consumer advocate for the state of Pennsylvania and now an attorney for the Pennsylvania Utility Law Project, at the October hearing in Harrisburg. In the context of Grandma versus Google, Cicero said, referring to older residents faced with high bills, Grandma should win every day. That should be the policy statement of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Federal and state lawmakers are still determining how and whether to regulate the additional costs that data centers pass onto consumers, including for fees associated with transmission throughout the grid. A bill that would create such a process while establishing renewable energy mandates for data centers is now being weighed by Pennsylvania representatives. Dennis Wamsted, energy analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, predicts such costs add complications for data centers, and has argued that their demand as a whole is overblown. Supply chain delays spurred by surging demand for turbines, including those that Homer City will be using, could also create additional costs and lag times, he said. If there is an AI bubble and it bursts, he said, you would have built all this capacity that wasnt needed. Homer Citys owners said the plant is better positioned than others in the industry since it isnt starting from scratch. Much of the critical infrastructure for the project is already in place from the legacy Homer City coal plant, including transmission lines connected to the PJM and NYISO power grids, substations and water access, Gorman, the spokesperson, said. Communities on the front lines of these projects would be the first hurt by a project that fails to materialize. But in Homer City, its clear that theres an appetite for the promise of a new, job-producing industry, regardless of hurdles. At the September hearing, many in the crowd wore neon shirts with union logosa signal of the regions fierce pride in its industrial past, and deep thirst for an economic boon. After an evening peppered with skepticism over the plant, Shawn Steffee, a business agent at the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, stepped to the microphone. Everybody speaking about jobs, he cried, there will be jobs, and there will be local jobs. As he walked away, the room filled with applausethe loudest of the night. By Audrey Carleton
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What shape could buildings take in 2026? Fast Company asked architects from some of the top firms working around the world what they thought about the look of architecture in 2026. Of course, a building designed in 2026 almost certainly will not be completed in 2026, and construction timelines are notoriously fluid. But according to experts, there are some overarching trends in architectural design that could put a clear 2026 stamp on buildings designed this year, whenever they officially open. Here’s the question we put to a panel of designers and leaders in architecture: When they finally get built, what will buildings designed in 2026 look like, and what will be the biggest factors determining their design? Integrated design After years of spectacle and brand-driven architecture, there’s an appetite, especially in New York, for buildings that feel integrated and inevitable rather than singular and expressive. Architecture that values experience and usefulness over heroic form will (hopefully) produce buildings that are calm, proportioned, and materially grounded.Trent Tesch, principal, KPF Complexity rethought People need to ask more of their buildings. Our built world can and should fulfill our purposes in more targeted, uniquely tailored ways. Buildings will do more to meet the needs of people beyond the walls, in their communities, and be more inclusive on multiple fronts. Our built spaces will say something about who we are collectively and represent the best qualities of our society. They can do more to make people feel safe, to be responsive to climate specificities, to challenge the very perceptions of what a building should be while also being beautiful in unexpected ways. That is what the best buildings of the future will look like and achieve. Rather than design being complex for complexity’s sake, rich and complex buildings will emerge out of solving for this multiplicity of conditions, perspectives, and needs we face societally.David Polzin, executive director of design, CannonDesign Situational design At the scale of our work at PAU, something built next year was designed starting in 2020 or 2021. This is why architecture is not like fashion or softwareit simply cannot be produced in time to reflect a zeitgeist. PAU’s work is “situational” in the sense that it is a mirror and window into the places and prerogatives in which each project is situated. So it is as much about where, why, and for whom as it is about when. That said, there are material advancements occurring that will allow us to use, for example, more sustainable concrete and other greener materials in the coming years.Vishaan Chakrabarti, founder, PAU Architecture goes organic The buildings of 2026 will be softer and more organicwith more natural, low carbon materials than any generation of contemporary buildings before them.Colin Koop, partner, SOM Building trust As someone deeply engaged in design leadership for an international practice, I see 2026 as a pivotal moment for architecturea true point of inflection. We are all confronting the profound and unavoidable emergence of artificial intelligence, which will transform how we work, think, and live; that transformation is real and consequential. But for me, the pressing issue shaping my approach to the built environment today is not technological. It is the state of our social fabric. We are designing at a moment of intense fragmentation: fraying civic trust, weakened institutions, and a growing sense of disconnection between people, between communities, and between society and nature. In that context, the most meaningful architecture of 2026 is not defined by a particular aesthetic, but by its intent and agency. We at Ennead have long believed that architecture is a civic and cultural act, and that our creative energies need to increasingly carry responsibility in addition to program and performance, beyond aesthetics and form. I believe our buildings are being asked to act as anchors of trustplaces that reaffirm the value of science, education, culture, and public life. Design in our contemporary society should prioritize openness and steadiness, reinforce institutions as places of collective knowledge and shared values, create environments that encourage community, inspire hope, and embody optimism. Design should become an act of reassurance: that knowledge matters, that culture endures, and that the public realm is still worth investing in. This shift requires architects to think deeply about human behavior, psychology, and social dynamics, and to see architecture as a long-term contributor to the historical record, not just a response to a brief. If architecture can engage these issues not in an esoteric way, but as an active participant in the global ethos, then I believe the built environment can play a meaningful rolehowever modestin helping to heal some of the fractures we are living with today.Thomas J. Wong, design partner, Ennead Architects Multipurpose architecture Buildings designed in 2026 will reflect a growing pressure on new development of all types to serve more and growing needs. We expect architecture to become more multipurpose and adaptive, shaped by embodied carbon and material limits, life-cycle performance, climate resilience, and long-term value. The most compelling projects will not announce themselves through form alone; spatial delight and invention is key. There is a basic need for joy and inspiration in the places that we can create to ease daily life. In many cases, the most radical choice will be to build with less, reuse even more, and design in ways that encourage change by others.Claire Weisz, founding principal, WXY architecture + urban design
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Nearly 500 buildings designed by Wright were built during his lifetime, but almost 15% of those have been demolished or lost through neglect, according to the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, an organization that works to preserve the famed architect’s work Now, a new logo for the organization serves as a reminder of how important it is to protect architectural history. Designed by the studio Order, the Conservancy’s new logo features a missing square that’s meant to represent the void when one of Wright’s buildings is lost or neglected. The Conservancy’s previous logo was a representation of the Lark Administration Building in Buffalo, New York, which was demolished in 1950. But Order hoped to design a new system for the group that could evolve and move forward. “Though this building’s story is, of course, important, our goal was to expand what the identity could capture by bringing in the full breadth of their community,” says Garrett Corcoran, a design director at Order. [Image: Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy/courtesy Order Design] The new logo is a four-by-four square grid that references one Wright’s visual signatures, a red square. Wright used the shape as his own “stamp of approval” on designs, letters, and buildings, and the shape has been used widely in logos for groups associated with his work, like the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust. [Image: Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy/courtesy Order Design] That widespread use, though, was the reason Order initially explored logo approaches that were slightly different, “to help identify the Conservancy within the landscape,” Corcoran tells Fast Company. That approach didn’t last long, though. “There was an undeniable truth the square brought when representing Frank Lloyd Wright,” Corcoran says. “Ultimately we came back to it as a foundation we could illustrate through as opposed to a crutch to lean on, embracing it but adapting it to make it the Conservancy’s own.” Instead of one square, the logo has 15, plus another made from the negative space where the single missing square should be. By representing a missing building abstractly instead of just depicting one outright, the new logo unlocks plenty of new graphic possibilities. It’s a simple form that works well at small scale, and it also tells a story. [Image: Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy/courtesy Order Design] “When even one building is threatened, the urgency of our mission becomes clearer,” Conservancy executive director Barbara Gordon said in a statement. “Each and every one of Wright’s built works showcases ideas that inspire, and the Conservancy exists to protect them all, ensuring the ideas they embody will impact the future. Our new identity was built to passionately communicate this.” [Image: Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy/courtesy Order Design] The typeface used in the identity is a customized version of Reply, a geometric sans serif inspired by Wright’s favored font, the typewriter version of Intertype Vogue. The versatile color palette comes with multiple shades to give graphics a sense of depth and light. [Image: Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy/courtesy Order Design] The new logo forms the basis of a larger design system for the organization that uses squares, grids, and block-like shapes for graphics and representations of Wright’s buildings, and the negative space can also be used as a window to show images of his architecture in the opening. For the group’s twice-a-year magazine SaveWright, Order designed an alternate version of the logo that fills in the blank space with a colored square, emphasizing our power to save now what one day could be lost. Rather than getting boxed in by the square, the Conservancy’s new logo manages to reinterpret a well-worn symbol for the celebrated American architect in a new way.
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