This long and low Leviathan is Google’s glossy new London headquarters.
So lengthy it’s been dubbed ‘the landscraper’ by locals, over one million square feet of
floor space it accommodates basketball courts, a theatre, massage parlors, and nap pods shared
between some 4,500 staff.
So what’s up with that unusual design?
How’s the neighborhood?
And, um, aren’t office blocks a bit 2019?
Join us now for a grand tour around Google’s new UK headquarters.
The north London district of Kings Cross, where Google’s new gaff is going, has something
of a chequered past.
It was first a site of great commercial importance when the newfangled steam railways and London’s
Regents Canal opened in the 19th century.
Alas, from about 1980 onwards Kings Cross sadly descended into vice and squalor as old
school industry fled the city.
However, since 2000 developers have been gussying up the neighborhood through a monumental multi-decade
investment program.
And it’s easy to see why big employers like Google, and its soon-to-be neighbor Facebook,
are moving in.
Kings Cross is incredibly well served for transport links.
You can go anywhere in London by Tube in a matter of minutes.
Next door you can jump on a train to Paris, not to mention the regular fast rail services
to Oxford, Cambridge, and Hogwarts.
Kings Cross is an attractive prospect for workers too – just ask the local talent.
The area is brimming with brains.
Google’s new home will be within strolling distance of the British Museum, the Francis
Crick and the Turing Institutes, prestigious University College London, University College
Hospital, The Wellcome Trust, and any number of biotech and AI startups.
Lately, this ultra-commutable egghead enclave has stolen the crown from London’s other
wannabe tech hub, a grimy junction above Old Street underground cynically nicknamed ‘silicon
roundabout’.
Anyway, enter Google, whose grand new edifice is said to have cost somewhere in the region
of a billion pounds.
It’s eleven stories high, and stretches 330 meters along the King’s Cross railway
tracks – that’s longer than London’s tallest building, the Shard, is high, by the
way.
Many Londoners say this development makes a nice change from all those priapic skyscrapers.
The new HQ was designed in a collaboration between Copenhagen starchitect Bjarke Ingels
and Kings Cross-based Heatherwick Studios.
Heatherwick, who as it happens just completed a lavish £100million refit of nearby Coal
Drops Yard shopping center, is no stranger to cockney icons.
Heatherwick designed the flaming cauldron centerpiece for London’s 2012 Olympic Games,
and the city’s curvaceous new-look Routemaster buses.
Google’s UK HQ – which founder Larry Page commissioned after dismissing another top
architect’s plans as ‘boring’ – really is a bit special.
There’s a large multi-lane upper-story swimming pool, cutting-edge sports facilities, a gym,
four cafes, and a multi-use games area.
There’s a 210-seat auditorium for product announcements and lectures.
The whole structure sits atop a so-called ‘plinth’ of retail and dining spots intended
to, in Heatherwick’s words, create ‘…variety and fascination at a human scale.’
On the rooftop, behold a 300-meter landscape garden divided into zones including a ‘pause
area’ for quiet contemplation.
There are shady wooded spots dappled with pastel wildflowers, lily-covered fish ponds,
rustic beehives, and a 200 meter running track commanding peerless panoramic views over London.
Inside, a dramatic staircase floats diagonally through what Bjarke Ingels describes as ‘a
single confident volume’ akin to Kings Cross station’s magnificent multi-arched concourse.
All internal routes are easy and flowing and connected in order to inspire ‘... opportunities
for chance encounters and foster all-important creativity.
Fundamentally, of course, it’s an office block.
So imagine hundreds of people staring at screens and zoning out in meetings.
Hey, at least they get nap pods.
The very fabric of the building was chosen in line with Google’s so-called ‘healthy
materials’ program.
This initiative traces its origins back to the early days of Google when a fretful Larry
Page would prowl the office with a handheld particle counter measuring air quality and
particulates emanating from the walls and floors.
Presently, Google runs a handful of offices across London.
Famously its Victoria outpost has beach huts and dodgem cars, while staff at Google’s
Covent Garden branch enjoy access to an allotment.
This new building, alongside two other nearby Kings Cross sites being looked at by Google,
will unify its UK team on one 7,000-person campus.
The centerpiece will be this, the only wholly Google-designed-and-built building outside
the US.
But hang on a minute, you’re probably thinking.
Don’t we all work from home now?
At the time of writing, almost all of Google’s 118,000 global employees are working in their
jammies
CEO Sundar Pichai has signaled he intends this policy to stand, until the end of June
2021 at any rate.
Because while it’s clear the nature of work has probably changed forever, Pichai still
has faith in the unique alchemy of in-person collaboration.
“We firmly believe that being together, having that sense of community is super important
for whenever you need to solve hard problems," he told Time Magazine
“So we don't think the future is 100% remote.
We value our offices, we value the culture.”
Certainly, Kings Cross’s lunchtime, restaurant, and bar scene will rejoice when Google’s
shiny new HQ fills up with well-remunerated young go-getters, potentially as soon as next
year.
Right now it’s still being built – get a load of those Android logos running up its
reinforced concrete core.
But ultimately, Google’s huge investment in London is a tonic for those Londoners who
worry that, since the pandemic, their city has lost its mojo.
Well, if anyone can help them find it...
What do you think?
Are these vast office hulks nothing but dinosaurs from a bygone corporate era?
Let us know in the comments, and don’t forget to hit subscribe for more hot-desking tech
content.