Google Charleston East: Must-See Renderings of Google’s New Campus

New Renderings and 11 Things to Know About the New Campus for Google

Courtesy Google, via City of Mountain View

Did you know there are 24 Google campuses across the world?

Perhaps the best known of the bunch is the Googleplex—Google, Inc. and parent company, Alphabet Inc.’s corporate headquarters complex in Mountain View, California near the San Francisco Bay area. The campus features lava lamps, swim-in-place pools (with lifeguards), pool tables, hair stylists, outdoor volleyball courts, spas, office dogs, and child care services.

Meet Google Charleston East

Courtesy Google, via City of Mountain View

Mountain View is expecting a drastic shakeup by designers from London’s Heatherwick Studio and Danish BIG architects: Google Charleston East.

While the tent-shaped headquarters is designed to complement the company’s existing patchwork of buildings—the new square structure will be located on the outskirts of the existing Googleplex—this is meant to be a “destination for the local community”.

Campus rooms will be divided up into rectilinear “pavilions”, each sheltered beneath the tented roof canopy. The majority of Google’s facilities—laboratories, cafes, offices, and events spaces—will be at ground level, while offices will be on a raised mezzanine level.

And the floor plan is intentionally designed to not perfectly line up with the tented roof leaving corners open for “outdoor rooms”, a “sloped savannah”, a “hangout hill”, and a sculpture garden.

“Our plans for the indoor and outdoor spaces include native habitats and vegetation designed to support local biodiversity and create educational opportunities for the community.”

Google says the ground story will be open to the public from dawn to dusk with a pedestrian pathway through the building, featuring restaurants and shops meant for both employees, residents, and other tourists.

What to Know

1. This is Google’s first time constructing offices from scratch, rather than taking over previously existing buildings.
2. Slated to be two stories tall and about 595,000 square feet
3. The roof will be made of curved metal squares in both pale and dark grey—finished so birds will be deterred from flying into it—with incorporated photovoltaic solar panels and “smile-shaped clerestories” to attract direct, indirect, and diffused natural light down to the spaces below
4. Google has to remove around 160 trees to build the new campus, but the company’s plans include replanting trees—100 of which are heritage trees—and offering sprawling green space
5. The project site is 18.6 acres in size, located in the North Bayshore Precise Plan area
6. The unique canopy-like structure regulates indoor climate while checking air quality and preventing too much noise pollution
7. Features a public plaza as well as “quieter and more intimate spaces for collaboration and private conversation”
8. Encircled by natural spaces and smaller park zones—a.k.a. the Green Loop—which will include pedestrian walkways and bike paths
9. Latest plans are possible thanks to a land swap between Google and LinkedIn allowing both companies to build their desired headquarters
10. Construction is slated to last 30 months upon approval by the Mountain View City Council
11. Retail functions will surround the central square, totaling 10,000 square feet

Courtesy Google, via City of Mountain View

New Renderings
67 pages of new public documents of what the new building will look like—in nearly a year—were made available by the City of Mountain View ahead of an upcoming public meeting on March 7 for a discussion of the plans.

BIG founder Bjarke Ingels told Dezeen that the project would set a new industry standard for workplace design and help define “Google 2.0”.

Within the tent-shaped addition, Googlers can look forward to working in the “highly flexible and reconfigurable” spaces on the second floor, above the expansive open areas on the campus.

(Heatherwick Studio originally aimed to build the new Google campus structure using robotics, but as of today, there has been no mention of robot construction. Stay tuned.)