North Bayshore campus proposal

Rethinking office space Story by Heatherwick Studio

North Bayshore campus proposal by BIG and Heatherwick Studio

• Client

Today (27/02/2015) we’re submitting a plan to redevelop four sites—places where we already have offices but hope to significantly increase our square footage—to the Mountain View City Council. It's the first time we'll design and build offices from scratch and we hope these plans by Bjarke Ingels at BIG and Thomas Heatherwick at Heatherwick Studio will lead to a better way of working.

he idea is simple. Instead of constructing immoveable concrete buildings, we’ll create lightweight block-like structures which can be moved around easily as we invest in new product areas. (Our self-driving car team, for example, has very different needs when it comes to office space from our Search engineers.) Large translucent canopies will cover each site, controlling the climate inside yet letting in light and air. With trees, landscaping, cafes, and bike paths weaving through these structures, we aim to blur the distinction between our buildings and nature.

Of course, this project is about much more than just office space; it’s about doing more with the local community as well. So we’re adding lots of bike paths and retail opportunities, like restaurants, for local businesses. We also hope to bring new life to the unique local environment, from enhancing burrowing owl habitats to widening creek beds. And we’re committed to do everything we can to save energy—our recent agreement to offset our energy consumption in North Bayshore with renewable energy includes the development of this proposal.

We chose Mountain View for our headquarters 15 years ago because we love the beauty of the bay, the close proximity to great universities, the family-friendly environment and the chance to work in a city at the heart of Silicon Valley. Today, we want to create office spaces that don’t just provide a great home for Google, but which also work for the city that has given us so much.

We look forward to working with our neighbors at the City Council on this proposal—and the future of Mountain View’s North Bayshore.

More info about our proposed new campus in Mountain View: http://g.co/go/y6pnk

Image gallery

In this rendering, Huff Avenue is transformed into a soft grid for pedestrians and bikes.

This rendering shows the northwest corner of the proposed Charleston South building.

This rendering shows the inside of the proposed Charleston South building looking west.

This bird’s eye view shows Google’s proposed new campus and its surroundings.

Mountain View’s Precise Plan encourages the creation of a diverse network of public and private open spaces such as plazas, parks and trails.

This rendering shows the west side of the proposed Huff project.

This rendering shows a restored natural habitat around Permanente Creek, near the proposed Landings project. You can’t tell, but a consolidated parking structure is hidden below this landscaped garden.

This rendering shows the entry lobby of the proposed Landings building.

This rendering shows the northern half of the proposed Landings project.

This rendering shows the west side of the proposed Shoreline building.

Rethinking office space

• Architects

Not the sexiest title for a blog post, I know. But as we’ve inhabited a variety of workplaces—including a garage in Menlo Park, a farmhouse in Denmark and an entire New York city block—we’ve learned something about what makes an office space great. And we’re excited to put that into practice, starting here at our home in Mountain View.

Today we’re submitting a plan to redevelop four sites—places where we already have offices but hope to significantly increase our square footage—to the Mountain View City Council. It's the first time we'll design and build offices from scratch and we hope these plans by Bjarke Ingels at BIG and Thomas Heatherwick at Heatherwick Studio will lead to a better way of working.

The idea is simple. Instead of constructing immoveable concrete buildings, we’ll create lightweight block-like structures which can be moved around easily as we invest in new product areas. (Our self-driving car team, for example, has very different needs when it comes to office space from our Search engineers.) Large translucent canopies will cover each site, controlling the climate inside yet letting in light and air. With trees, landscaping, cafes, and bike paths weaving through these structures, we aim to blur the distinction between our buildings and nature.

We look forward to working with our neighbors at the City Council on this proposal—and the future of Mountain View’s North Bayshore.

Image gallery

Brand description

Heatherwick Studio is a team of over 200 problem solvers dedicated to making the physical world around us better for everyone.

Based out of our combined workshop and design studio in central London, we create buildings, spaces, masterplans, objects and infrastructure. Focusing on large scale projects in cities all over the world, we prioritise those with the greatest positive social impact.

Working as practical inventors with no signature style, our motivation is to design soulful and interesting places which embrace and celebrate the complexities of the real world. The approach driving everything is to lead from human experience rather than any fixed design dogma.

The studio’s completed projects include a number of internationally celebrated buildings, including the award-winning Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town, Learning Hub at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, Coal Drops Yard in London, and the UK Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo 2010.

The studio is currently working on 30 live projects in ten countries. These include Lantern House, a new residential building for Related in Manhattan, as well as major new headquarters for Google in Silicon Valley and London (in collaboration with BIG).