Google’s plans for its new headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., include using small cranes and robotic machines that are capable of reconfiguring interior modular spaces, as needs change, within hours.
According to its development application, the search-engine giant envisions a headquarters with four large structures, built on 3 million sf of land. Each would be scaled as an entire city block and draped with glass canopies. The first site, called The Landings, would start construction by 2020, with the other structures to be started within the following four years.
Each structure’s floors, walls, ceilings, and other interior elements would be attachable to and detachable from permanent steel frames, so that whole new workspaces could be formed and manipulated, not unlike moving around office furniture.
The Silicon Valley Business Journal reports that Google intends to install cranes and robots, known as “crabots,” within these buildings to lift and move around the modular components. The Business Journal could not ascertain whether the crabots are still on the drawing board or exist as practical tools. And Google, in its documents, isn’t revealing much, as it only suggests that a specialized crabot could be developed and manufactured by combining the latest crane and robot technology.
It’s worth remembering, though, that Google bought eight robotics companies in 2012 and 2013, including Boston Dynamics, which has designed research robots for the Pentagon. Google has also been testing self-driving cars since 2009.
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
New book provides energy efficiency guidance for hotels
Recommendations on achieving 30% energy savings over minimum code requirements are contained in the newly published Advanced Energy Design Guide for Highway Lodging. The energy savings guidance for design of new hotels provides a first step toward achieving a net-zero-energy building.
| Aug 11, 2010
Perkins+Will master plans Vedanta University teaching hospital in India
Working together with the Anil Agarwal Foundation, Perkins+Will developed the master plan for the Medical Precinct of a new teaching hospital in a remote section of Puri, Orissa, India. The hospital is part of an ambitious plan to develop this rural area into a global center of education and healthcare that would be on par with Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford.
| Aug 11, 2010
Burt Hill, HOK top BD+C's ranking of the nation's 100 largest university design firms
A ranking of the Top 100 University Design Firms based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
| Aug 11, 2010
PBK, DLR Group among nation's largest K-12 school design firms, according to BD+C's Giants 300 report
A ranking of the Top 75 K-12 School Design Firms based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
| Aug 11, 2010
Pella introduces BIM models for windows and doors
Pella Corporation now offers three-dimensional (3D) window and door models for use in Building Information Modeling (BIM) projects by architects, designers, and others looking for aesthetically correct, easy-to-use, data-rich 3D drawings.
| Aug 11, 2010
High-profit design firms invest in in-house training
Forty-three percent of high-profit architecture, engineering, and environmental consulting firms have in-house training staff, according to a study by ZweigWhite. The 2008-2009 Successful Firm Survey reports that only 36% of firms overall have in-house training staff. In addition, 52% of high-profit firms use an online training system or service.
| Aug 11, 2010
Jacobs, HDR top BD+C's ranking of the nation's 100 largest institutional building design firms
A ranking of the Top 100 Institutional Design Firms based on Building Design+Construction's 2009 Giants 300 survey. For more Giants 300 rankings, visit http://www.BDCnetwork.com/Giants
| Aug 11, 2010
Walt Disney Family Museum planned in San Francisco
Construction is under way on a new museum dedicated to the man behind the Disney empire. Set to open this fall in San Francisco, the Walt Disney Family Museum will feature 10 galleries, starting with Disney's beginnings on a Missouri farm.
