With its sprawling new Silicon Valley offices, Google has placed a large bet on in-person collaboration.
On Monday, a news agency paid a visit to Google’s 1.1 million square foot (100,000 square meter) campus, where the tech giant is welcoming employees back after pandemic-era telecommuting.
“Luckily, a lot of the things we were already planning kind of set us up for success with Covid,” said Michelle Kaufmann, Google director of development for built environments.
“Thank god, because otherwise we would have built these buildings and we would have to change,” she added.
The campus is located on 42 acres (17 hectares) of leased federal land near NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, near the company’s headquarters.
It has an event center and small apartments for employees who come from out of town for work. Building ventilation systems use 100 percent outside air, which helps to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
lovely empty spaces
Ground floors include cafes, fitness centers, meeting rooms, social spaces, and playful touches like multi-colored stationary bikes that people can pedal while chatting, with the option of plugging in to charge devices with the power they generate.
Desks are located on the upper floors of the two-story structures, with furniture and fixtures that can be easily reconfigured as needed by teams.
Workspaces are divided into “neighborhoods” with homey touches and even “courtyards” with comfortable furniture. “The ground level is more vibrant because it is more like a market.” Kaufmann explained.
“Upstairs is more of a quiet space where the teams do a lot of their work,” she explained. The Bay View campus is designed to house 4,500 employees, with move-in scheduled for the coming weeks.
Solar panels generate electricity, geothermal systems help with heating and cooling, and water collection and recycling systems produce surplus that is used to help restore wetlands on the property.
Google anticipates that people will typically work from the office three days per week in the future, with that rhythm changing depending on project phases and, of course, the tempo of the pandemic.
“I don´t believe that any of our buildings are going to be empty, that is not a problem that we are worried about,” Kaufmann said. “We are more worried are we going to have enough space, just because the company is still growing,” she added. Google employs over 45,000 people in the Silicon Valley area (SVA).
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