Google just unveiled plans for a new headquarters in Mountain View that looks like a series of canopies or even almost geodesic-dome like formations.
This is the first time the company has designed and built offices from scratch, and it’s partnering with Bjarke Ingels at BIG and Thomas Heatherwick at Heatherwick Studio, which will lead to a better way of working.
Instead of very permanent buildings, Ingels and Heatherwick conceived
of lightweight block structures that can be moved around as Google gets
into new areas as it has in the past with self-driving cars and
smart contact lenses.
Moreover, the company envisions a campus that more seamlessly blends
into the surrounding area. Areas are open to the public as well as
Google employees.
“It needs to be a neighborhood in Mountain View,” the video above
says. That’s a contentious point, as Google has long wanted to build
north of 5,000 housing units in the area, which the city council has
resisted. The inability to co-locate or build housing in line with
the company’s growth has put pressure on cities to the north like San
Francisco.
The video also critiques a lot of the automotive-centric
infrastructure that surrounds the area like Highway 101. Mountain View
and other cities nearby came of age in the mid- to late-20th century
when suburbs and highways were favored by federal policy and cultural
tastes. This has shifted as younger tech companies have decided to begin
life north in San Francisco over the last 15 years.
Meanwhile, slightly older companies like Facebook and Google have
remained entrenched in the South Bay suburbs. Each is in the process of
erecting futuristic new complexes from Apple’s circle-like headquarters
under construction in Cupertino to Facebook’s new Frank Gehry-designed building in Menlo Park.
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