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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 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... 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
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
[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.
— recode
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:Archinect Sessions Episode #19: Don't be Evil, Don't Throw StonesGoogle loses to LinkedIn in Silicon Valley... View full entry
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.
— qz.com
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... View full entry
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
[...]
— Vox
"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:Can Silicon Valley save the Bay... View full entry
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.
— reuters.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:U.S. says computers qualify as drivers in Google's autonomous vehicles; won't even have to go to the DMVThe U.S. just got $4 billion to spend on self-driving carsAdapting self-driving cars to the world of humansDawn of the self-driving car: testing out Tesla's... 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
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.’
— architectsjournal.co.uk
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... 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, [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
