Google's Futuristic HQ Plans Impossible To Achieve (Right Now)

In their video announcing plans for their new campus, which you can see below, Google made an interesting point: Silicon Valley is pretty boring. For all the innovative, awesome stuff that comes from one small area of California, the landscape looks exceedingly corporate and boring. After scaling so quickly, some large the companies are looking to expand. Apple has their 'spaceship' campus underway, and it seems Google wants to follow suit. The images below detail their plans, which by their own admission, are impossible to achieve.

The new building are a sight unto themselves. Google is planning to erect buildings that are almost fully enclosed, but also glass. Rather than be hidden by walls, Google would cover their employees in a glass canopy. Inside, an open space would allow employees to work and play, all without ever leaving a structure.

Google is also planning a retail environment, where a plaza has several shops that aren't necessarily Google, or even tech. There's also something called a 'soft grid', where plants are more prevalent than cement or asphalt, and vehicle access is limited. Google is also planning to replace about 32 acres of hard surface with flora and open space.

The buildings can be repurposed to suit the company's needs, and are wholly modular designs. Those interior moving pieces will be managed by 'Crabots', which are a crane-robot hybrid. Here's how David Radcliffe, VP of Google's Real Estate team, described it all:

Instead of constructing immoveable concrete buildings, we'll create lightweight block-like structures which can be moved around easily as we invest in new product areas. Large translucent canopies will cover each site, controlling the climate inside yet letting in light and air. With trees, landscaping, cafes, and bike paths weaving through these structures, we aim to blur the distinction between our buildings and nature.

Unlike Apple, Google's not even sure when this is going to happen. They admit some of the technology they need to build their new campus doesn't even exist yet, and they don't have the approval of the Mountain View City Council as the plans were only introduced today.

Source: San Francisco Business Times