Google Inc NASDAQ:GOOG) has handed top British designer, Thomas Heatherwick, the prestigious job of creating its new $1.56 billion London headquarters. Google CEO, Larry Page wants the headquarters building to retain its glory for one hundred years.
The new office that is yet to be completed is located at 6 Pancreas Square, in the vicinity of London King’s Cross station. It’s expected that the new office will accommodate up to five thousand Google employees. Heatherwick is already working on the Silicon Valley company’s new Californian headquarters. Google has hired him after turning down proposals from architecture agency AHMM (Allford Hall Monaghan Morris).
London-based AHMM crafted plans featuring an indoor climbing wall, a rooftop pool, an indoor football (soccer) pitch and a roof-mounted running track “as long as the Shard is tall.” However, Larry Page was not happy with the designs. According to a report by the Architecture Journal in February, the development sparked an exodus of AHMM staff involved in the project. It is unclear at the movement whether AHMM has completely lost the project or will collaborate with Heatherwick Studios.
Both Google and Heatherwick have refrained from commenting on the matter. Heatherwick has catapulted into the limelight courtesy projects such as the Olympic cauldron for the 2012 London games and a changed design of London’s trademark Routemaster buses that involved including a three-door design, a hybrid powerplant for minimal emissions as well as fuel consumption. His present project is a new “garden bridge” across the Thames.
Heathewick’s design agency was one of the two assigned to build Google’s new Mountain View Offices earlier this year. His agency’s big plans for the new office feature translucent canopies with the ability to control the inside climate.
Google’s £1.0 billion, 93,000 sqm project development at King’s Cross which will be the search giant’s European headquarters has experienced a series of delays since it was launched in 2013. As of now the project doesn’t have a completion deadline.
Sources: businessinsider, androidheadlines
