Google’s UK HQ plans get green light, ‘groundscraper’ includes rooftop pool

By Trevor Mogg Published September 5, 2013

googles uk hq plans get green light google — Image used with permission by copyright holder

If someone told you there was a new building going up in the neighborhood with a games area, rooftop swimming pool and running track, and a climbing wall that extends between floors, you’d be forgiven for thinking a leisure center was being built – but this is Google’s (who else, eh?) new UK headquarters we’re talking about.

Plans for the building – described by the Web giant as a “groundscraper” (at 330-meters LONG, it’s like a skyscraper on it’s side, y’see) – were this week given the green light by London’s Camden council.

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The 920,000-square-feet building will have 11 floors at its highest point and feature a 20,000-square-feet space for bicycle parking as well as a multi-use games area. Presumably there’ll be some desks and computers in there somewhere, too.

google london uk hq — Image used with permission by copyright holder

The new headquarters will house around 5,000 workers and is set to become Google’s largest office outside of its famous Googleplex campus in Mountain View, California.

The building, which will be located close to London’s busy King’s Cross railway station, has been designed by architects Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM) and comprises steel framing with cross laminated timber panels. The project is said to be costing Google some £650 million ($1 billion).

Google currently has two offices in the UK capital, in Victoria and Holborn, with all staff expected to relocate to the new site once it opens in 2016. The company also operates Campus London in the east of the city that offers facilities to entrepreneurs working to get startups off the ground.

Construction work on the new headquarters is set to start in early 2014.

[via Telegraph]

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