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#COMMERCIAL ARCHITECTURE PROJECTS

New tent-like HQ plan emerges from the ashes of Google’s original vision

Google has had architecture firms BIG and Heatherwick Studio working on plans for its new headquarters in Mountain View, California for some time, and we’ve been following the developments at every twist and turn.

After a few wrenches in the original plan and some disagreements with the local city council about just how much land the tech giant could build on, Google has finally unveiled a revised design that gives us a better idea of where the project is heading. It might be a subtle way of maintaining a sense of humor about the whole debacle, but the newest version of the HQ design includes a huge tent, not unlike the kind you’d see at a circus.

The tent-like structure is a refined representation of something Google said they wanted all along—vaulted glass canopies instead of traditional roof tops. The original plan was a futuristic metropolis, and the new plan for the Charleston East building retains a similar feel. Google filed detailed building plans as well as a series of elaborate renderings that show the building bustling with employees. In all, Google’s new headquarters will consume 600,000 square feet of building space, plus 45,000 square feet of interior landscaping. To encourage movement between different parts of the campus, the design also includes an 18,500-square-foot “public route” right through the building. The campus will also have 1,200 parking spaces, 660 long-term bike parking spots, 440 short-term bike parking spots, as well as 400 shared bike spaces.

The previous modification to the master plan came last June after Google was shut down by the city council and awarded only one-quarter of the land originally planned for the sprawling new headquarters. The revised plan released at that time called for looping in another plot of land the search engine leader was already leasing. It was obvious that the original design plans created by BIG and Heatherwick Studio would have to change drastically to fit on the new site, but Google has been pretty quiet about the developments until the new plans were filed with the city of Mountain View this week.

New tent-like HQ plan emerges from the ashes of Google’s original vision

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  • Mountain View, CA, USA
  • BIG

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