
Bjarke Ingels and Thomas Heatherwick have unveiled a radical design for Google’s Silicon Valley HQ that comprises flexible ‘building blocks’ contained beneath a transparent membrane. The complex would act as an “urban neighbourhood” for Google employees and the public.
“Within this, the architecture of the building becomes like giant furniture that can be connected in different ways,” says Ingels. “Instead of having buildings as boxes with walls and floors, [we’ve] dissolved the building into a simple, supertransparent, light membrane.” This, Heatherwick continues: “[creates] in effect a glass fabric, draping itself across tent poles, and we’re blurring the outside and inside world.”