Dezeen Magazine

Google headquarters photographed by The 111th

Roof completes on Heatherwick and BIG's Google HQ

New photos capture the latest progress on the headquarters that BIG and Heatherwick Studio have designed for Google in California's Mountain View.

Silicon Valley photography company The 111th took the images of Google's new campus, currently under construction in Mountain View, California.

Google headquarters photographed by The 111th

Danish architect Bjarke Ingels' international firm BIG and London's Heatherwick Studio, led by Thomas Heatherwick, teamed up to design the complex, which marks Google's first office to built from scratch.

It comprises two structures built close together and a larger volume a few blocks away.

Google headquarters photographed by The 111th

The 111th's images capture the construction of the three buildings, which are set to be topped with white tent-like roofs. Each canopy is formed as a series of panels that dip slightly in the middle, creating a rippled effect.

The photos reveal that the rooftop of the larger building is fully completed. The windows at incisions across the panelled top, which are called "smile-shaped clerestories", are also installed.

Google headquarters photographed by The 111th

The construction of two nearby buildings is also well underway, with one of the structures featuring a similar roof.

The 111th, which specialises in real-estate photography, discovered the project when flying over the Silicon Valley site in November 2018. It captured the early stages of construction on the larger structure in an aerial movie.

Google headquarters photographed by The 111th

Heatherwick and BIG first revealed Google's new headquarters in 2015 with a series of dome-shaped buildings. The duo originally claimed that campus would be built by robots but there are no signs on them in any of the images. Instead cranes, several trucks and heavy machinery feature.

The project was stalled in 2015 when city councillors granted the property to LinkedIn but Google opted to build on a different, smaller site. Heatherwick and BIG then revised and reduced the plan in 2016 to feature just one building.

Google headquarters photographed by The 111th

Inside the volumes, the roof will enclose several structures and is designed to regulate the temperature and acoustics.

Within the office spaces, furniture and partitions are designed to be movable as part of Google's goal to set a new industry standard for workplace design with the Google 2.0 initiative outlined by Ingels.

Rounding out Google's Mountain View headquarters are plantings and pathways that will provide outdoor areas across the complex. They are referred to as a "green loop".

BIG and Heatherwick Studio are also working together on Google's headquarters in London, and BIG also plans to create Google's offices in nearby Sunnyvale.

Google headquarters photographed by The 111th

The Google outpost is located on the southern tip of San Francisco Bay and nestled among three Silicon Valley cities, Palo Alto, Los Altos and Sunnyvale.

Other tech offices in the area include Apple's doughnut-shaped headquarters in Cupertino by Foster + Partners and Facebook's building extension by Frank Gehry in Menlo Park.

Photography is by The 111th Group.