Archinect - News

Is the architectural design causing serious Wi-Fi issues at Google's new Bay View headquarters?

2024-03-26T17:28:00-04:00

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.

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 BIG + Heatherwick-designed Bay View HQ campus opens. Photo: Iwan Baan, courtesy of Google

The other culprit would be the building’s internal layout and configuration and the density of routers within it (H/t various Reddiors). Google would not publically address the source of the connectivity issues.

Operations at the company's other new headquarters inside the St. John’s Terminal in Manhattan, which opened in February, however, appear to be running a bit more smoothly.

Google scraps $15 billion Silicon Valley development deal with Lendlease

2023-11-06T12:28:00-05:00

Google has scrapped a $15 billion development deal that would have benefitted California’s Silicon Valley with new modern office parks, affordable housing, and mixed-use districts, according to reports published by CNN and Reuters late Friday.

The deals struck with Australian multinational Lendlease cover planned developments in and around Santa Clara County, California, including Sunnyvale and three others in San Jose and Mountain View. Google had previously announced its plans to reduce its company size by about 6% at the beginning of the year.

Both Lendlease and Google had released statements expressing their continued pursuit of the projects in April when the San Jose Downtown West development’s start of construction was put on hold indefinitely. Lendlease now says the four-year-old deal is no longer “mutually beneficial given current market conditions.”

The news strikes a major blow to the faltering...

Google's BIG + Heatherwick-designed Bay View HQ campus opens

2022-05-17T18:55:00-04:00

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 celebrates the first time it led the concept and construction of one of its own major campuses, boasting an extensive list of human-centered, sustainable features.

According to Google's project announcement, Bay View is an all-electric, net-water-positive facility with the largest geothermal installation in North America. Both projects report being the largest buildings in the world to pursue LEED-NC v4 Platinum and the largest to pursue elements of the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) Living Building Challenge (LBC) Petal Certification.

Photo: Iwan Baan, courtesy of Google

Designed in collaboration with Bjarke Ingels Group and Heatherwick Studio, the campus officially broke ground in 2...

BIG + Heatherwick Studio's Google Campus roof canopy unveiled

2019-09-11T21:00:00-04:00

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 employees and local residents to enjoy. A series of aerial photos of the construction progress have been released by the 111th Group.

The 111th Group has provided the finest in aerial photography for California's Bay Area and beyond since 1994. Specializing in commercial real estate photography, mapping, aerial surveys, GIS, construction progress photography and more, the 111th utilizes airplanes, helicopters and FAA approved drones to provide high quality photography and videography services. The 111th Group is located in the heart of the California's Silicon Valley.

Also, check out this drone video of construction progress from earlier this year:

Snøhetta’s Museum Quarter project will give “Ötzi the Iceman” a new home

2019-03-01T18:21:00-05:00

Snøhetta has announced their new project proposal for the Museum Quarter in Bolzano. Nestled within Bolzano's capital in Northern Italy the building's location is set to be on top of Virgolo/Virgil Mountain. In conjunction with Bolzano's new cable car structure, also designed by Snøhetta, the new landmark will serve as an immersive public space for the city's inhabitants.

Museum Quarter in Bolzano; Image © moka-studio & Snøhetta

A reconstruction of Ötzi the Iceman at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology. Image © OetziTheIceman /Flickr CC

The museum's future site has a significant historical significance to the capital. In 1976, the city's history funicular closed which made the mountains access unavailable to the public. From its lush green space to the prehistoric and Roman traces of the South Tyrolean capitol the museum will allow for the space to become accessible to visitors after nearly forty years. The Museum Quarter will also accommodate the South Tyrol Museum of Archeology an...

Mountaineer's Refuge provides a home base for trekking in Chile

2018-01-04T16:04:00-05:00

Located in San Esteban, Chile, the Mountaineer's Refuge was designed by Gonzalo Iturriaga Arquitectos as a small cabin to be a point of arrival and departure for mountaineer treks. The space functions as a shelter and lookout for contemplation and relaxation and requires only the bare necessities for a mountain expedition rest stop: a roof, kitchen, bedroom, mountaineering equipment storage, and stunning panoramic views.

With a pine finished exterior, cuts and folds define the structure's access points. Mountaineer's Refuge rests on piles, making it a self-contained object suspended above the ground. The building is ventilated on all sides provided from the mountain's updraft into a series of dedicated openings.

Google acquires LinkedIn's HQ in huge, unexpected property swap

2016-07-13T18:13:00-04:00

[Google and LinkedIn] announced a large, surprising property swap encompassing over three million square feet of existing and future real estate... From Google, LinkedIn is picking up seven buildings...In return, Google is getting LinkedIn’s Mountain View headquarters office and...four different surrounding properties that enable Google to follow through on its ambitious plan for a new, green, crazy-futurist campus.

Following an unsuccessful bid last year, this is good news for Google as they continue to push toward making their dream campus a reality. Unleash the “crabots”.

Previously on Archinect:

Google launches Waze Carpool with cost-neutral pricing

2016-05-26T18:46:00-04:00

The pilot program is limited to about 25,000 employees of companies including Walmart and Adobe Systems... Waze will match riders with drivers already heading along similar routes during the morning and evening rush hours. [...] Waze Carpool is charging riders just $0.54 a mile, which is also what the IRS recommends companies reimburse their employees per mile for business-related travel. “Waze Carpool focuses on covering costs, not generating an income,” the company explains.

Google purchased Waze, the Israeli GPS-based navigation system with real-time travel details submitted by users, in 2013 for $1.15B. With a fleet of already operating autonomous vehicles, Google stands to leverage its Waze transit data in big ways for an autonomous taxi service that could hit companies like Uber and Lyft hard.

That $0.54 rate for the Carpool rides is also significant because it won't lead to the same insurance-scrutiny that has plagued other ridesharing companies:

Waze Carpool’s $0.54 rate is also important from a regulatory standpoint. As Waze explains, car insurance policies in states including California typically cover “not for profit, share-the-expense carpooling.” By framing its operations that way, Waze Carpool may be able to avoid the scrutiny around insurance coverage that has at times sidelined Uber and Lyft.

Related on Archinect:

Silicon Valley is set to get over 10K more housing units – is this the beginning of the end of its housing crisis?

2016-03-08T21:03:00-05:00

Last week the city council in Mountain View, California, took a significant step toward addressing Silicon Valley's housing affordability crisis. The city approved a new planning document for its North Bayshore district that envisions the creation of up to 10,250 units of high-density housing. Mountain View only has about 32,000 households total, so that would be a substantial 32 percent increase [...]

"The big question is whether this represents an isolated victory for housing advocates or whether it's the start of a trend toward denser development in Silicon Valley more broadly."

For more on the housing woes of the world's tech capital, check out these links:

Google's self-driving car hits bus and causes its first crash

2016-03-01T14:11:00-05:00

Google said on Monday it bears "some responsibility" after one of its self-driving cars struck a municipal bus in a minor crash earlier this month. The crash may be the first case of one of its autonomous cars hitting another vehicle and the fault of the self-driving car. [...] Google said in the filing the autonomous vehicle was traveling at less than 2 miles per hour, while the bus was moving at about 15 miles per hour.

Googleplex expansion pivots BIG and Heatherwick design onto new site

2015-06-01T20:35:00-04:00

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.

For some background on the Googleplex expansion plans:

Google loses to LinkedIn in Silicon Valley HQ pitch

2015-05-06T15:29:00-04:00

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.

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 Radcliffe, Google's VP of real estate, said in an emailed statement: “We know the City Council had a tough decision to make last night and thank them and our community for more than six hours of debate,” and that Google would “continue to work with the City on Google’s future in Mountain View.”

Details on BIG and Heatherwick's proposal here.

New Googleplex will be built by robots

2015-05-06T13:02:00-04:00

Mock-ups of the so-called ‘crabots’ are featured in lengthy planning documents submitted to the City of Mountain View Council in Silicon Valley [...] ‘Our objective is to create a solution that can be assembled efficiently and economically within pre-erected canopy structures by means of small, easily manoeuvrable cranes.’ ‘Through the life of the buildings this [will] allow reconfiguration and maintenance…of the canopy envelope from within.’

The new Googleplex campus expansion, designed by BIG and Heatherwick Studios in collaboration to accommodate 20,000 new Mountain View employees, will be constructed by "an army of robot-crane hybrids", the Architect's Journal reports. Citing planning documents Google submitted to Mountain View Council earlier this week, AJ reports that these "crabots" would be "a mash-up of flexible crane and robotic machine".

The construction method fits squarely with Google's aim to keep their campus flexible and reconfigurable after it's built. As Nicholas Korody explained in our coverage introducing BIG and Heatherwick's design: "Eschewing immoveable concrete edifices, the campus would consist of a series of light-weight structures that can be moved around to accommodate new projects and product development as they unfold." Theoretically, these "crabots" could be the same employed to reconfigure the interior spaces as needed. Not sure whether they'd count among the 20,000, though.

...

Critical response to Googleplex expansion focuses on suburban development, not architecture

2015-03-10T15:37:00-04:00

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, integrated with the North Shore’s natural landscape and urban life – depended on where it was published. Design and architecture publications picked at BIG and Heatherwick’s design; tech and general publications focused on mega-client Google and the changes to Mountain View.

The renderings released at the end of February (see here) are part of a massive master plan submitted by Google to Mountain View officials on February 27. It is highly unlikely it will proceed as-is. But with the sheer real estate that Google commands in Mountain View, this project adding 2.5 million new square feet to Google’s cache of the majority of privately owned land in the North Bayshore area, it’s certainly not scaling ...

BIG / Heatherwick Studio to design new Google HQ

2015-02-25T13:11:00-05:00

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.

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 safe to say that the design will continue Google's urbanification of its campus – borrowing elements from urban planning and "spontaneity generating" strategies for a new HQ that has BIG's playfulness and Heatherwick's artfulness.

More recent news from the firms:

Heatherwick Studio showcases their multi-disciplinary design skills in the "Provocations" exhibition

Let the fighting begin: London Garden Bridge faces legal challenge

BIG's Telus Sky Tower breaks ground in Calgary, Canada

Session 14: His bjark is BIGger than his bjite – A chat with Bjarke Ingels at the opening of BIG's "Hot to Cold" exhibition

Playing with climate at BIG's "Hot to Cold", now open at the National Building Museum

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