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Google has not publicly disclosed the reasons for the Wi-Fi problems, but workers say the 600,000-square-foot building’s swooping, wave-like rooftop swallows broadband like the Bermuda Triangle. [...]
But, a Google spokeswoman acknowledged, "we’ve had Wi-Fi connectivity issues in Bay View." She said Google "made several improvements to address the issue," and the company hoped to have a fix in coming weeks.
— Reuters
The roof of the BIG and Heatherwick Studio-designed Bay View headquarters, which opened in 2022, is a key component of the building’s circular design strategy and features 90,000 "dragonscale" solar panels. Some believe they could be causing the interference. Related on Archinect: Google's... View full entry
Google has announced the opening of its new Bay View campus in Mountain View, California, with the neighboring Charleston East project in its final phase of construction. Together, they form the latest additions to Google's headquarters. Photo: Iwan Baan, courtesy of Google The web giant... View full entry
Construction on the long-anticipated Google Charleston East HQ is making steady progress. The campus, designed by BIG and Heatherwick Studio, will be partially accessible to the public and will include a series of pavilions, cafes, shops, as well as retail and plenty of landscaping for both... View full entry
Silicon Valley is in the midst of something of a building boom with several of the tech giants commissioning new headquarters from big-name architects. First came Facebook with a campus designed by Frank Gehry. Next, Apple got Lord Norman Foster to design a spacecraft-like... View full entry
[...] part architect, part furniture designer, part product designer, part researcher, part landscape architect, and part Pied Piper of design, and the things he comes up with manage somehow to be at once charming and brash.
[...] shares not only the Eameses’ determination to be wide-ranging but also their fascination with technology, their interest in communication, and, most important of all, their passionate belief in the meaning of actually making things and in using materials in new ways.
— vanityfair.com
Other recent Thomas Heatherwick sightings in the Archinect news: Renderings of Thomas Heatherwick's "Vessel" for New York's Hudson Yard revealedWhy are Heatherwick's proposals succeeding in New York but tanking in London?Construction of Heatherwick + Signe Nielsen-designed Pier 55 to begin this... View full entry
Google already had building rights for a fifth site overlooking Charleston Park, just east of the current Googleplex [...]
A 2007 lease agreement allows Google to build up to 595,000 square feet of office and commercial space there. [...]
The new plans feature the same futuristic designs by European architects Bjarke Ingels and Thomas Heatherwick that were part of the larger plan debated by the city this year.
— mercurynews.com
For some background on the Googleplex expansion plans: Google loses to LinkedIn in Silicon Valley HQ pitchCritical response to Googleplex expansion focuses on suburban development, not architectureGoogle Unveils BIG + Heatherwick Studios Collaboration for New Campus Master Plan View full entry
In a blow to Google’s expansion plans, on Tuesday the Mountain View City Council voted to give the search giant roughly a quarter of the office space it had requested for the project, and instead awarded the lion’s share of the city’s future office development –- 1.5 million square feet –- to LinkedIn.
Google received about 500,000 square feet, or about enough to build one of the four buildings it had proposed.
— bits.blogs.nytimes.com
How this news will affect BIG and Heatherwick's design for the Googleplex expansion is as of yet undetermined. Earlier today, we learned that Google planned on constructing its new HQ using "crabots", so clearly sights were set on the Mountain View City Council giving the go-ahead. David... View full entry
Google’s choice of BIG and Heatherwick Studios to design their Mountain View campus expansion is true to form: big, brash, debatably realistic, with a dash of techno-utopianism. The critical response to the proposal – a series of webbed glass shells covering reconfigurable utility spaces... View full entry
This week Amelia, Paul, Donna and Ken discuss the somewhat controversial Google Headquarters design by BIG and Heatherwick. On a completely different note, we also discuss the new, and the nation's first, slavery museum, Whitney Plantation, in Louisiana. As always, you can send us your... View full entry
“Silicon Valley has been the cradle of a series of innovations that, over the last decades, have propelled technology and [the] world economy, but all of the resources, all of the intelligence, has been invested into the immaterial, the digital realm, the internet,” asserts Bjarke Ingels of... View full entry
This week, [Google] is expected to propose new headquarters — a series of canopylike buildings from Heatherwick Studio, a London design firm known for works like the fiery caldron at the 2012 Olympics, and Bjarke Ingels [...]
The project in Mountain View, which Google has not made public but has discussed with members of the City Council, is likely to aggravate an increasingly testy relationship between the company and community leaders who fear the company is overrunning their small city.
— nytimes.com
Both Heatherwick Studio and BIG have gained global success working on an impressive variety of scales, from the infrastructural to the sculptural, and also happen to both have relatively young founders (Heatherwick is 45, Ingels is 40). While details aren't expected until later this week, it feels... View full entry