2015-03-02

Google Master Plan, Digital Principles Into The Physical Realm (video)


Google Vice President of Real Estate Dave Radcliffe and architects Thomas Heatherwick and Bjarke Ingels discuss Google's proposed Master Plan for its new campus in Mountain View, California, with its focus on creating space for people, nature and ideas to thrive. (Published on Feb 27, 2015)

Google's new building proposal reflects its DNA - San Jose Mercury News: "... When you look carefully at the renderings and watch the nine-minute video that Google has [made]... three points leap out. In a sense, the proposal for moveable buildings inside giant glass membranes constitutes form following ambition: ... A) This is the anti-Apple complex... Google's greenhouses -- its entire campus, in fact -- expresses the differences in stark terms. Where Apple's new spaceship building in Cupertino is a great circle turned on itself, the legacy of Steve Jobs' mania for secrecy, Google's new buildings follow the mantra of open source... B) It's a monument to impermanence... But like the original Crystal Palace, which was constructed in Hyde Park in 1851 and then moved to South London, Google's new buildings celebrate change... "It needs to be this incredibly flexible space," Radcliffe says. Why do it this way? Well, tech moves fast, and the demands of today don't necessarily translate tomorrow. Google's new driverless autos have a very different need for space than does its money-making search engine. C). It's an attempt to compete with the urban impulse of young techies... "

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