Around 4,000 Google employees are moving into the company’s plush new Mountain View campus this week.
The tech giant showed off the new site in a video (below) that also offers lots of insight about the stunning design.
Called “Bay View,” the California campus covers 42 acres and will be filled with workers from Google’s ad unit — the most lucrative part of its global business.
The site, which is a short distance from Google’s Mountain View headquarters, was designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and Heatherwick Studio, with input from Google’s design and engineering teams. The company says it takes “green building and workplace design to the next level.”
The new campus comprises a couple of office buildings, a center capable of holding as many as 1,000 people, and 240 accommodation units for Google employees visiting from out of town, CNBC reported. It also includes seven cafes to keep everyone fed and watered.
Filled with natural light, featuring high ceilings, and with a design theme that brings the feeling of natural outdoor spaces indoors, the new campus was built largely with healthy, sustainable materials. The lower level is primarily a gathering space for people to work together on the next big thing, while the upper level is sectioned off into smaller spaces for closer collaboration.
The gorgeous design certainly suggests it could tempt many of Google’s work-from-home enthusiasts to return to the office. The company is in the process of encouraging staff to work on site again following two years of workplace disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Indeed, in a nod to the new hybrid model of working, the campus incorporates lots of screens for videoconferencing, as well as booths for video calls involving a smaller number of people.
The campus has been designed to collect rainwater off angled solar panels that cover the roof. The water will be used for cooling towers, flushing toilets, and irrigation. The interior air is kept fresh, too, with the ventilation system using 100% outside air, a huge improvement over regular systems that only use up to 30% of outside air, according to Google.
Employees can also refresh their minds by stepping outside and strolling among 17 acres of natural green spaces that include meadows and woodlands.
Commenting on the design of the new campus, Michelle Kaufmann, director of Google R+D, described the site as “an opportunity to rethink the very idea of what an office building is.”