Googleplex
| Googleplex | |
|---|---|
 One of the entrance signs at the Googleplex |
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| Built | 1998 |
| Location | 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, Santa Clara County, California, United States |
| Coordinate | 37°25′19″N 122°05′02″W / 37.422°N 122.084°W |
| Address | 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043 |
The Googleplex is the corporate headquarters complex of Google, Inc., located at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, Santa Clara County, California, United States, near San Jose.
The original complex with 2 million square feet of office space is the company's second largest square footage assemblage of Google buildings (#1 is the 2.9 million square foot 111 Eighth Avenue building in New York City which Google bought in 2010). Once the 1.1 million square foot Bay View addition comes on line in 2015 the Googleplex would be the biggest collection of Google buildings with 3.1 million square feet of space.[1]
"Googleplex" is a portmanteau of Google and complex, and a reference to googolplex, the name given to the large number 10(10100), or 10googol.
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Facilities and history
Original campus
SGI Campus
The four core buildings, totaling 47,038 square meters (506,310 sq ft), were built for and originally occupied by Silicon Graphics (SGI). The office space and corporate campus is located within a larger 26-acre (110,000 m2) site that contains Charleston Park, a 5-acre (20,000 m2) public park; improved access to Permanente Creek; and public roads that connect the corporate site to Shoreline Park and the Bay Trail. The project, launched in 1994 to reclaim a former industrial brownfield site, was a creative collaboration between SGI, SWA Group of San Francisco, Sausalito, and the Planning and Community Development Agency of the City of Mountain View.[citation needed] The objective was to develop in complementary fashion the privately owned corporate headquarters and adjoining public greenspace. Key design decisions placed parking for nearly 2000 cars underground, enabling SWA to integrate the two open spaces with water features, shallow pools, fountains, pathways, plazas, and a gigantic statue of a dinosaur. The project was completed in 1997. The ASLA noted in 1999 that the SGI project was a significant departure from typical corporate campuses, challenging conventional thinking about private and public space.
STUDIOS Architecture was the executive architect for the original SGI campus, and provided both interior architecture and base building design.
Google campus
The former SGI facilities were leased by Google beginning in 2003.[3] A redesign of the interiors was completed by Clive Wilkinson Architects in 2005. In June 2006, Google purchased some of Silicon Graphics' properties, including the Googleplex, for $319 million.[4][5]
Since the buildings are of relatively low height, the complex sprawls out over a large area of land. The interior of the headquarters is furnished with items like shade lamps and giant rubber balls. The lobby contains a piano and a projection of current live Google search queries. Facilities include a gym (Building 40), free laundry rooms (Buildings 40, 42 & CL3), two small swimming pools, multiple sand volleyball courts, and eighteen cafeterias with diverse menus. Google has also installed replicas of SpaceShipOne and a dinosaur skeleton.[6][7]
Since 2007 the site has featured a series of solar panels covering the rooftops of eight buildings and two solar carports, and capable of producing 1.6 megawatts of electricity. At the time of installation Google believed it to be the largest in the United States among corporations. The panels provide the power needed for 30% of the peak electricity demand in their solar-powered buildings.[8]
Four 100kW Bloom Energy Servers were shipped to Google in July 2008, making Google the first customer of Bloom Energy.[9][10]
There is a giant green statue of the Android logo outside of Building 44 (1635 Charleston Road) on the Google campus (It can be seen using Google Maps Satellite on 45° mode). 37°25′13″N 122°05′02″W / 37.420269°N 122.083949°W
Not officially encompassed in the Googleplex, but still owned by Google is the secret Google X Lab.
Bay View addition
In 2013 construction began on a new 1.1 million square foot headquarters campus dubbed "Bay View" adjoining the original campus on 42 acres leased from the NASA Ames Research Center and overlooking San Francisco Bay at Moffett Federal Airfield. The estimated cost of the project is $120 Million with a target opening date of 2015.[11][12][13][14]
NBBJ is the architect and this is the first time Google has designed its own buildings rather than moving into buildings occupied by previous businesses.[15]
Location
The Googleplex is located between Charleston Road, Amphitheatre Parkway, and Shoreline Boulevard in north Mountain View, California close to the Shoreline Park wetlands. Employees living in San Francisco, the East Bay, or South Bay may take a free wifi-enabled Google shuttle to and from work. The shuttles are powered by a fuel blend of 95% petroleum diesel and 5% biodiesel, and have the latest emissions reduction technology.[16][17]
Neighbors of the Googleplex include Shoreline Amphitheatre to the north; Intuit to the northwest and Century Theatres, Microsoft Corporation's Silicon Valley research complex, and the Computer History Museum to the south. Moffett Field lies nearby to the east.
The location of the Googleplex is highlighted in the iPhone/iPad app Magic World, which places the Googleplex at the center of a scalable Universe. This honor for the Googleplex probably owes to the high-resolution aerial images available for the region.[citation needed]
Other uses of the word
"Googleplex" is also part of a title referring to a minor character from the 1979 book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, a powerful computer called the "Googleplex Star Thinker".
See also
References
- ^ Strickland, Jonathan (2008-08-04). "HowStuffWorks "Introduction to How the Googleplex Works"". Howstuffworks.com. Retrieved 2013-05-24.
- ^ Kelly, Caitlin (2012-04-28). "Google Course Asks Employees to Take a Deep Breath". The New York Times.
- ^ Olsen, Stefanie (2003-07-13). "Google's movin' on up with Sujeet Kumar and Manohar Patti". CNET News.com (CNET Networks, Inc.). Retrieved 2007-01-04.
- ^ Mills, Elinor (2006-06-14). "Google buying its Mountain View, Calif., property". CNET News.com (CNET Networks, Inc.). Retrieved 2007-01-04.
- ^ Conrad, Katherine (June 14, 2006). "Google to purchase Mountain View buildings". San Jose Mercury News (AccessMyLibrary). Retrieved 2009-11-07.
- ^ Weinberg, Nathan (2007-01-22). "Yes, Google Has The Dinosaur". google.blognewschannel.com. Retrieved 2007-01-23.
- ^ Mohney, Chris (2007-02-06). "25 things to see at the Googleplex before you die". Valleywag. Gawker Media. Retrieved 2009-08-08.
- ^ "Reducing our Footprint". Google. Retrieved 2010-09-30. "In Mountain View, CA, for example, we currently have a 1.6 megawatt solar power system that generates 30% of the peak power necessary to fuel the buildings on which they are located."
- ^ NASA Technology Comes to Earth | Bloom Energy
- ^ Bloom Energy Revealed on 60 Minutes! : Greentech Media
- ^ http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/pdf/255793main_June.08.Agram.smallfile.pdf
- ^ "Google Starting Construction on New Campus - WSJ.com". Online.wsj.com. 2013-02-22. Retrieved 2013-05-24.
- ^ Goldberger, Paul. "Exclusive Preview: Google’s New Built-from-Scratch Googleplex". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 2013-05-24.
- ^ "Googleplex: Google to build $120m futuristic HQ with a garden on the roof | Mail Online". Dailymail.co.uk. 2013-02-25. Retrieved 2013-05-24.
- ^ Russell, James S. (2013-04-24). "Google’s New Campus Has Light, Fresh Air, Low Power Use". Bloomberg. Retrieved 2013-05-24.
- ^ Spivack, Cari (2004-09-13). "Worth the drive". Official Google Blog. Google, Inc. Retrieved 2007-01-04.
- ^ "Campus operations -- A closer look". Google, Inc. Retrieved 2012-06-15.
External links
- Life in the Googleplex 2006 Photo Essay from Time magazine
- Googleplex East: Inside Google's New York City Headquarters, from Information Week
- A YouTube Video Tour of Googleplex
- Google Googleplex at Jokerblog.net
- Biking around Googleplex on Kinomap
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