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Bjarke Ingels and Thomas Heatherwick are reportedly designing Google's new headquarters

Bjarke Ingels and Thomas Heatherwick are reportedly designing Google's new headquarters

Presumably not wanting to be outdone by Facebook and its Frank Gehry–designed digs or Apple and its Norman Foster–designed doughnut, Google has tapped two architectural big hitters for its new Mountain View, California headquarters. According to the New York Times, the company is expected to announce that the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and Heatherwick Studio are behind the yet-to-be-seen design, which given the two firms’ portfolios, should be pretty dramatic. But all we know at this point is that the headquarters will be comprised of “a series of canopylike buildings.”

No matter what the building—or buildings—looks like, it will likely get some pushback from the community which feels that Google is overextending its footprint in Mountain View. “When Google moved here in 1999,” wrote the Times, “it had a dozen employees and a search engine known only to computer aficionados. Now, its 20,000 local employees make it the biggest employer in a city that is bursting at the seams.” Two of the most pressing issues that Google and the city will have to hash out moving forward are housing and traffic.


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