Google has recently leased nine acres of land in Mountain View for $30 million to build a new office space, which will apparently be built on green, sustainable principles.
Currently, Google is based at the famous Googleplex in Mountain View. The new building will be built on the border of the Googleplex, extending the headquarters to 600,000 square feet. Construction is set to begin in 2012.
The company already owns 4.3 million square feet of land in the Californian town.
The Googleplex is straining to cope with the number of Google employees, and in January this year, the company announced that it would be hiring more employees this year than ever before.
Reportedly, German architectural firm Ingenhoven has been selected to build the new office space. The firm is renowned for its green constructions. It is currently designing a 30-storey office block in Sydney, which will have an open-to-sky atrium running the full length of the building, ensuring natural ventilation and light.
Google spokesperson Jordan Newman said that the firm had been asked, “to build the most green, sustainable building possible.”
Currently, Google employs 26,000 people, and since the last quarter of 2009, its workforce has swollen by one-third – about 6,500 employees. In 2007 alone, the company added 6,131 employees. Approximately one-third of the company’s employees are based in California’s Bay Area.
The Googleplex features a soccer field, basketball courts, a gym, volleyball courts, swimming pools, and 18 cafeterias.
Google was started in a garage in Menlo Park in 1998.
Editor’s notes: As of June 2023, Google was awaiting the completion of the construction of a £1 billion office development in Kings Cross in London. The scheme is due for completion in 2024 and will be Google’s first wholly owned and designed building outside of the U.S.
The 1-million-square-foot building was designed to be just 11 storeys tall but would be taller than The Shard.
In March 2026, Google announced 4,000 staff would start moving into its Kings Cross HQ, named Platform 37, in Summer 2026, 10 years after it was originally scheduled to be completed.
Google has a Google Visitor Experience at its Gradient Canopy office in Mountain View, which is open to the public; more details are available here.