The award winning sustainable German architecture firm, Ingenhoven Architects, has been hired by Google Inc to design their new headquarters in Mountain View, California. Expected to begin construction in 2012, Ingenhoven approached the design with the idea that ‘the architecture should be an expression of the corporate culture and at the same time a model for sustainable architecture in the broadest sense surpassing the LEED-Platinum-Standards with its holistic concept’. Jordan Newman, a Google spokesman shared about Ingenhoven, “we’ve asked them to build the most green, sustainable building possible.”
Google’s offices in Milan, previously featured on ArchDaily can be viewed here. More about this exciting news from the architects following the break.
The rise of Google Inc. Is a phenomenal success story that has just begun. More than 80% of all searches world-wide are done using Google. The growth of the company is mirrored in the growth of the Google Campus in Mountain View/California, the Headquarters of Google on Charleston Park. Google is proud of its corporate culture and offers attractive workplaces in order to attract the best talents from all over the world. Google wants to build a showcase sustainable building. On the adjacent site between Charleston Road and Shoreline Boulevard a large new building will be built for Google. The site demands a building with autarkic geometry. As part of an international selection process ingenhoven architects won the commission to design the new HQ. The clients brief was simple: It should be the best and greenest building in the world!
The new building will be home for 2.500-3.000 engineers and scientists as well as the Headquarters. The Google Headquarters is the first project for ingenhoven architects in the US and Google builds for itself for the first time. Googles success depends on engineers, inventors mathematicians, IT-experts and scientists of all kinds. The building should reflect their different approaches and enhance convenience and productivity. The building will be lively, fresh, simple and flexible and offer healthy, communicative and effective workplaces and have buzz.
Sustainable and ecologically oriented architecture is for Ingenhoven Architects a negotiated agreement. All our projects are orientated on international standards, like LEED, BREEAM, ASHRAE, Swiss Minergy, European Standard 2000 or DGNB, whose founding member we are.
The use of regenerative energies and resources like geothermal energy and rainwater plays an important role in our concepts and so the intensive integration of daylight as well a natural ventilation of buildings. With a minimum consumption of energy and resources we aim the highest degree of utilization comfort.
Ingenhoven Architects are one of the world’s leading architectural practices in sustainable design since founding the studio in 1985. The RWE Headquarters in Essen, designed in 1991 and completed in 1996, is one of the first ecologically orientated high-rise buildings that with its double façade technology allows each floor to be naturally ventilated. The Lufthansa Headquarters at Frankfurt Airport, completed in 2006, requires only one-third of the energy of a conventional office building. The new Main Station in Stuttgart, to be built from 2010, was awarded the Global Holcim Award in Gold in 2006 for its sustainable design. As carbon-free and zero energy building, it requires no heating, cooling or mechanical ventilation.
The European Investment Bank in Luxembourg, finished in 2008, is certified as “Excellent” by the British Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM). The Breezé Tower in Osaka is the first environmentally friendly skyscraper in Japan with a double facade made of glass. With the rating as S-Class according to the Japanese CASBEE-System it has gotten the highest rating for ecological architecture in Japan. The 1 Bligh building in Sydney will be the first high-rise to receive the 6 Star-World Leadership Certificate of the Australian Eco-Standard Green Star. The fully glazed tower is equipped with a double skin façade and ventilated by an atrium stretching the whole height of the tower.
