Google has opened a building serving its North American operations in New York City that is housed in a 1930s rail terminal restored and adapted by architecture studios CookFox Architects and Gensler.
Developed by Oxford Properties, the 232-foot-tall (70 metres), 12-storey office building houses Google's North American headquarters for global business organisation and is located on the west side of Manhattan, just north of the Tribeca neighbourhood.
Design architects on the project CookFox Architects adapted a 1930s railway terminal called St John's Terminal, which served as an end-point to the rail line that is now the High Line, to create the office building. The studio added nine floors on top of the restored original three floors.
CookFox Architects also sliced away part of the old terminal south of Houston Street, which runs parallel to the new entrance, exposing the building's structure. "We cut the historic structure south of Houston Street, removing a dark tunnel and restoring the pedestrian connection between the Hudson Square neighbourhood and the westside waterfront," said CookFox Architects.
The building's original rail beds were left exposed on the facade and then covered in plantings, creating a linear overhang at its entrance.
The rail beds within St. John's Terminal revealed in the cut facade as if in a section drawing, now feature a landscape that visually connects pedestrians and occupants to nature while enhancing the newly opened str eetscape.
International architecture studio Gensler led the project's interior architecture. The studio organised the interior around "neighbourhoods", orienting the design around the functioning of team units within the organisation.
Clustered work zones peppered with amenities, relaxation spaces, and circulation, pre-planned to quickly accommodate changes to the support spaces, will give individual teams a sense of ownership over their neighbourhoods so Googlers can live authentically throughout their entire work day while they collaborate shoulder-to-shoulder.
The building will accommodate a workforce of over 3,000 "Googlers", with an interior organised into 60 "neighbourhoods" that will act as central spaces for teams of roughly 20-50 workers, eliminating assigned desks in favour of flexible seating areas.
Other spaces include work lounges on every floor, cafes, terraces, micro-kitchens and event spaces such as theatres. Outside, 1.5 acres surrounding the building have been planted with native New York plant species.
The building has LEED v4 Platinum Certification for its core and shell development and is pursuing LEED v4 Platinum Certification for interiors. Its adaption is "projected to save approximately 78,400 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emission" as compared to a new structural build.
