The circus is headed to Mountain View, Calif.! Or, at least that’s what it looks like, as the newly released design plans for Google’s new Charleston East campus show a building with the appearance of a giant futuristic circus tent. However, despite the color of Google’s logo, don’t expect to see this building filled with clowns or acrobats, as the building will incorporate many state-of-the-art features to provide the most efficient workplace possible.
Back in February 2015, Google released its initial plans for the project, but this past February saw them update and alter those plans. The most visible difference between the plans is the loss of a translucent canopy that was meant to regulate climate, air quality, and sound while enclosing flexible building segments that had the ability to be moved around both inside and outside of the enclosure. For any of you thinking to yourself, Simpsons did it! Simpsons did it! Yes, the design looked a little bit like when The Simpsons Movie put a glass dome over the entirety of Springfield.
The canopy is still in place and it is still designed with the purpose of regulating indoor climate, air quality, and sound, but the plans now call for it to be opaque. The building components are still labeled as "flexible" and are designed to be adaptable to Google’s changing needs, but they seem to have lost at least some of their originally planned mobility.
Photovoltaic panels will be incorporated over much of the canopy’s surface to generate as much electricity from renewable resources as possible. The actual amount of electricity that would be generated is still being studied.
In another effort to help decrease electricity consumption, the structure uses smile-shaped clerestories that span two sides of each 102-foot bay to bring direct, indirect, and diffused natural light into the building. The way the building is designed and laid out makes it so even the centers of the lower level floor plans are able to receive natural light. Google is still experimenting with different glazing strategies and technologies to control and scatter direct sunlight in order to minimize glare.
The building is designed with nature in mind and the landscape strategies of the building aim to nurture and restore native ecologies of the North Bayshore area. Google is working with local ecological consultants and wildlife experts in an effort to help wildlife species on the site to thrive. Not much has been overlooked, as bird safety has even been integrated into the design. The building plans call for bird-friendly design elements to help eliminate any birds flying into windows or other areas using clear glass or disturbing migration patterns with light pollution. Some of these design elements are fine-grained visual obstacles in the vertical envelope glass coatings that reduce reflection, limited light pollution at night, and carefully placed vegetation.
The overall design concept is driven by five guiding principles to provide the highest quality work environment possible and represent a vision for the workplace of the future. These design principles are:
- Beauty and simplicity
- Flexible and hackable spaces
- Ecology and access to nature
- Efficiency of resources and materials
- Health and environmental quality
Google is hoping these guiding principles will help them achieve LEED Platinum certification.
While the new building lost its visionary clear canopy made, the new plans still present an innovative, modern design that blends in with the surrounding ecosystems and landscape instead of standing in stark contrast to them. And, who knows, maybe Cirque du Soleil will get mixed up and think the building is their tent one day, leading to some very good lunchtime entertainment. However, the company is still in the early stages of planning this structure and there is still plenty of work that needs to be done before any type of construction begins.
Google chose Bjarke Ingels Group and Heatherwick Studio as design consultants for the project, Adamson Associates as the architect of record, Arup as the structural/MEP engineer, and Hargreaves Jones Landscape Architecture as the landscape consultant.
The plans can be viewed in their entirety on the City of Mountain view website.
The original plans called for a translucent canopy to cover the majority of the campus. This has been changed in subsequent plans. Renderings courtesy Google
Related Stories
| Jan 31, 2012
Chapman Construction/Design: ‘Sustainability is part of everything we do’
Chapman Construction/Design builds a working culture around sustainability—for its clients, and for its employees.
| Jan 26, 2012
Three dead, 16 missing in Rio buildings collapse
The buildings, one 20 floors high, collapsed on Wednesday night in a cloud of dust and smoke just one block away from the city's historic Municipal Theater.
| Jan 26, 2012
Summit Design+Build completes law office in Chicago
Applegate & Thorne-Thomsen's new office suite features private offices, open office area, conference rooms, reception area, exposed wood beams and columns, and exposed brick.
| Jan 17, 2012
SOM Chicago wins competition to design China's Suzhou Center
The 75-level building is designed to accommodate a complex mixed-use program including office, service apartments, hotel and retail on a 37,000 sm site.
| Jan 15, 2012
Hollister Construction Services oversees interior office fit-out for Harding Loevner
The work includes constructing open space areas, new conference, trading and training rooms, along with multiple kitchenettes.
| Jan 15, 2012
Smith Consulting Architects designs Flower Hill Promenade expansion in Del Mar, Calif.
The $22 million expansion includes a 75,000-square-foot, two-story retail/office building and a 397-car parking structure, along with parking and circulation improvements and new landscaping throughout.
| Jan 12, 2012
CSHQA receives AIA Northwest & Pacific Region Merit Award for Idaho State Capitol restoration
After a century of service, use, and countless modifications which eroded the historical character of the building and grounds, the restoration brought the 200,000-sf building back to its former grandeur by restoring historical elements, preserving existing materials, and rehabilitating spaces for contemporary uses.
| Jan 4, 2012
New LEED Silver complex provides space for education and research
The academic-style facility supports education/training and research functions, and contains classrooms, auditoriums, laboratories, administrative offices and library facilities, as well as spaces for operating highly sophisticated training equipment.
| Jan 3, 2012
VDK Architects merges with Harley Ellis Devereaux
Harley Ellis Devereaux will relocate the employees in its current Berkeley, Calif., office to the new Oakland office location effective January 3, 2012.
| Jan 3, 2012
Rental Renaissance, The Rebirth of the Apartment Market
Across much of the U.S., apartment rents are rising, vacancy rates are falling. In just about every major urban area, new multifamily rental projects and major renovations are coming online. It may be too soon to pronounce the rental market fully recovered, but the trend is promising.