Google opens futuristic Mountain View campus where 4,000 will work – Times-Herald 

MOUNTAIN VIEW – Google opened its Bay View canopy campus at NASA Ames in Mountain View this week, saying 4,000 people will work on a futuristic green complex fed by dragon-scales-like solar panels.

The development of the three buildings, along with Google’s Charleston East project in Mountain View, which opens in 2023, represents a change for the technological titan.

“This is the first time we’ve developed one of our major campuses,” said David Radcliffe, vice president of real estate and labor services. “The process allowed us to rethink the very idea of ​​an office.”

The result is a striking campus, grown in the area of ​​NASA’s Ames Research Center, a group of buildings ready to offer new ways to work with people and interact with staff. coronavirus.

Google began building the complex in 2017, a few years before the coronavirus hit 2020, and personally launched a pandemic that dramatically changed attitudes toward office work, as well as the very nature of how these offices would be designed and operated.

As vaccines become available and fears of a deadly virus begin to wane, tech titans like Google have gradually brought workers back to the office. Companies face the value of face-to-face collaborations.

The new campus has a total of 1.1 million square feet and consists of two large office buildings, an event center for 1,000 people and a four-room accommodation complex with 220 rooms for short-term staff stays.

Mountain View-based Google says it designed the campus — designed in collaboration with world-renowned architects Bjarke Ingels Group and Heatherwick Studio — with the needs and aspirations of staff first.

“For those who come to the office, Google’s desire was designed to balance the desire to come together as a team, with the need for an environment that allows for deep work,” Google said.

The interiors of the buildings combine large spaces with 30 courtyards or atriums, as well as small rooms where people can go out in individual work spaces.

“Team spaces are upstairs and gathering areas are downstairs, with a focus and areas of collaboration, while providing easy access to both,” Google said in an email to this news organization.

The second-floor design features floor-plan variants to give groups a designated “neighborhood” area, and is very flexible to suit their needs, according to Google.

The interiors have large sections on the upper levels, which provide plenty of natural light inside the buildings.

“We want people to have daylight, but not too direct sunlight,” said Michelle Kaufmann, director of real estate and employment services, research and development.

The campus will use solar panels reminiscent of a dragon’s scales on its roof, in harmony with the geothermal batteries beneath the complex office, to create an energy arrangement that can cool the large structure and heat it in cold weather.

“This is the largest geothermal energy stack system in North America,” said Asim Tahir, director of real estate and labor services, energy and carbon.

50,000 dragon-scale solar panels have been installed on the outside of the building.

Its residents will be able to take advantage of the new Bay View campus in a variety of ways. These include public access to open roads with panoramic views of the bay, improved bike connections to Stevens Creek and Bay Roads, and the widening of new car routes and bike lanes to RT Jones Road.

The campus covers 17.3 acres of valuable natural land, including wet meadows, forests and swamps, all of which contribute to Google’s broader efforts to restore missing habitats in the Bay Area.

The complex also creates a workspace that blends in with the new post-pandemic world of work.

The upper floor is divided into smaller neighborhoods separated by courtyards and connected by ramps, which gradually rise as people move to the center of the building.

This variation of floor tiles gives groups a designated area that changes to their needs. But the design keeps people close to their larger work community.

“As a result, it’s a building where you can feel connected to people, be it in a larger 2,000-person organization, in a 50-person group, or in an immediate 10-person work group,” Radcliffe said in a blog post. campus.