The future of work, according to Google, will take place in woodland glades and wildflower meadows, next to trickling streams and verdant allotments, among bike paths and yoga classes and gushing fountains, with fresh produce on tap. It will be a pastoral utopia-with-WiFi, all safely swept beneath a series of gigantic glass tents.
Silicon Valley’s mother of all tech companies has today unveiled plans for its gargantuan new headquarters in Mountain View, California, designed by global star architects Bjarke Ingels and Thomas Heatherwick. And it looks like a futuristic Center Parcs.
“What is the best possible environment we can make to invent, engineer and make ideas happen and go out into the world?” asks Thomas Heatherwick in the promotional video, which was launched on Friday without fanfare on Google’s own blog. “When you visit the Google campus, there’s lots of trees,” he adds, “but there’s this constant undermining by the road system and the infrastructure required for all those cars.” Their strategy, says Ingels, is to “transform the sea of parking into a natural landscape, where you’ll find an abundance of green both outside and inside.” ….
