Follow this tag to curate your own personalized Activity Stream and email alerts.
One of Chicago’s iconic pieces of public art will be getting a new home. French artist Jean Dubuffet’s sculpture “Monument with Standing Beast,” in place in front of the Thompson Center since the building opened in 1985, is moving to a different spot in the Loop. — Chicago Sun Times
Following last week’s $105 million sale of the Thompson Center to Google, the famed Dubuffet sculpture will be relocated to a former bank building at 115 S. LaSalle Street, a space purchased by the state of Illinois to house office space lost with the sale. The 29-foot, 10-ton... View full entry
It’s our duty to give them our perspective, but it always ends up being a collaboration between what our ideas and knowledge are, and what their vision is. I would be doing anyone in development a disservice if we didn’t propose and push for something that is greater than what initially is the expectation. Like many things in life, you think you can run a mile this fast, and then someone challenges you to run a little bit faster and you figure out you can. You’re always moving the bar. — The Real Deal
The younger Jahn, now president of the firm his late father established, spoke with TRD about the recently-announced sale of Helmut Jahn's most famous work, commenting that the 37-year-old Thompson Center would be “enhanced to a level and expectation of a 21st-century office” before shutting... View full entry
The sale of the iconic Thompson Center in downtown Chicago is being finalized with Google planning to occupy office space following extensive renovations by the new owner. Google will take over the entire building once the new owners, JRTC Holdings, renovate the Thompson Center to the tech giant's specifications. — CBS Chicago
With its future sorted, the Helmut Jahn-designed building is here to stay. A sale agreement with JRTC Holdings was finalized in March; however, today’s announcement includes revisions to the agreement and the addition of Google as the primary tenant. Originally, Illinois was set to receive... View full entry
Google is negotiating to buy the spaceship-like James R. Thompson Center in Chicago in a deal that could provide a much-needed boost to the city’s Loop business district.
The Mountain View, California-based tech giant is seeking to buy the Helmut Jahn-designed building at 100 W. Randolph St., where it plans to expand its Chicago offices into a large portion of the 17-story building’s soon-to-be-renovated office space, according to people familiar with the deal.
— CoStar
The future for Chicago's James R. Thompson Center, designed by the late Helmut Jahn, may be looking a bit brighter after the National Trust for Historic Preservation added the postmodern gem to its annual “America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places” list in 2019. Last year, the Chicago... View full entry
Harvard University has today announced its first-ever cohort for the brand new Climate Justice Design Fellowship, recognizing young leaders across the country in the fields of environmental justice advocacy, law, and climate organizing. The first class of fellows consists of seven... 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
Google launched a new mode for Maps on Wednesday, designed to give users a more real-life look at the places they’re going before they even go. The new Immersive View is sort of a Street View in the sky: you can look over a location from above to get a sense of the neighborhood and then drop to street level to see the specific spots you might want to hit up. — The Verge
The feature was revealed at Google’s I/O 2022 Keynote address in which CEO Sundar Pichai also introduced a new flood forecasting feature and expanded capabilities of the 15-year-old Maps project made possible through advancements in AI technology. Pichai says the company now has 1.6 billion... View full entry
For more than three decades, Clive Wilkinson has been among the most sought-after office designers in the world. He has planned spaces for the likes of Microsoft, Disney, Intuit and other companies seeking unorthodox approaches to work life.
But he now has regrets about what is perhaps his most famous work: Googleplex, the tech giant's posh headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.
— NPR
Wilkinson’s statements offer a rebuke to the Silicon Valley culture he played a role in pioneering and now deems to be "fundamentally unhealthy." The $1 billion office complex in Mountain View, California designed by STUDIOS Architecture with interiors by Wilkinson is serviced by a... View full entry
2021 was a year where form continued to follow finance. Throughout the year, our coverage included many examples of the world’s largest architecture firms designing for some of the world’s largest companies. From sleek corporate headquarters to “work-and-play” tech campuses, such projects... View full entry
Over recent weeks, Facebook’s rebranding and embrace of the metaverse has added a further dynamic to the role of digital space in our future lives. While the definition of the metaverse has been adapted numerous times since its coining in Neal Stephenson’s cyberpunk novel Snow Crash in... View full entry
Google announced plans to purchase the St. John’s Terminal building in Hudson Square for $2.1 billion during the first quarter of 2022. The tech giant already leases the former freight terminal, which is currently undergoing a major renovation and addition as part of the company’s new 1.7 million-square-foot campus in the neighborhood. The deal marks the priciest sale of a single office building in the country since the pandemic, as well as one of the most expensive ever recorded. — 6sqft
View more details about St. John's Terminal by COOKFOX on their Archinect profile by clicking this link. View full entry
Block 185 or “Google Tower,” the future site of Google’s regional headquarters in Austin, Texas, is ahead of schedule according to Construction Dive. Construction of the 35-story office building, designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects and STG Design for developers Trammell Crow... View full entry
Google’s major campus development in San Jose, California has been unanimously approved by city officials. “Downtown West” will see the delivery of 7.3 million square feet of office space for 20,000 workers, as well as thousands of housing units, spread across an 80-acre site. The scheme... View full entry
Block 185, the downtown Austin office tower project best known as the future home of Google, has made significant progress since its groundbreaking back in the downright prehistoric era of 2019 — and though it hasn’t reached its full height of 594 feet just yet, the 35-floor building’s ever-growing prominence on the downtown skyline is becoming increasingly difficult to overlook. — Towers
The 35-story Block 185 office tower, designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects in collaboration with the local office of STG Design for developers Trammell Crow Company, will be Google's regional HQ in Austin. Completion is scheduled in 2022. Previously on Archinect: Pelli Clarke Pelli, Gensler... View full entry
Los Angeles announced last week it will pilot Google's new Tree Canopy Lab technology that combines AI and aerial images to assess the city's tree canopy, or tree cover density. The platform shows the tree canopy at the neighborhood level to identify gaps and determine where the city should make investments. — Smart Cities Dive
According to Smart Cities Dive, "Tree Canopy Lab is integrated into Google's existing Environmental Insights Explorer, which helps cities measure and track environmental data such as air quality and emissions from the building and transportation sectors. The data analyses allow cities to... View full entry
