Google’s plans for its new headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., include using small cranes and robotic machines that are capable of reconfiguring interior modular spaces, as needs change, within hours.
According to its development application, the search-engine giant envisions a headquarters with four large structures, built on 3 million sf of land. Each would be scaled as an entire city block and draped with glass canopies. The first site, called The Landings, would start construction by 2020, with the other structures to be started within the following four years.
Each structure’s floors, walls, ceilings, and other interior elements would be attachable to and detachable from permanent steel frames, so that whole new workspaces could be formed and manipulated, not unlike moving around office furniture.
The Silicon Valley Business Journal reports that Google intends to install cranes and robots, known as “crabots,” within these buildings to lift and move around the modular components. The Business Journal could not ascertain whether the crabots are still on the drawing board or exist as practical tools. And Google, in its documents, isn’t revealing much, as it only suggests that a specialized crabot could be developed and manufactured by combining the latest crane and robot technology.
It’s worth remembering, though, that Google bought eight robotics companies in 2012 and 2013, including Boston Dynamics, which has designed research robots for the Pentagon. Google has also been testing self-driving cars since 2009.
Related Stories
| Nov 16, 2010
Calculating office building performance? Yep, there’s an app for that
123 Zero build is a free tool for calculating the performance of a market-ready carbon-neutral office building design. The app estimates the discounted payback for constructing a zero emissions office building in any U.S. location, including the investment needed for photovoltaics to offset annual carbon emissions, payback calculations, estimated first costs for a highly energy efficient building, photovoltaic costs, discount rates, and user-specified fuel escalation rates.
| Nov 9, 2010
12 incredible objects being made with 3D printers today
BD+C has reported on how 3D printers are attracting the attention of AEC firms. Now you can see how other creative types are utilizing this fascinating printing technology. Among the printed items: King Tut’s remains, designer shoes, and the world’s smallest Rubik’s Cube.
| Nov 5, 2010
New Millennium’s Gary Heasley on BIM, LEED, and the nonresidential market
Gary Heasley, president of New Millennium Building Systems, Fort Wayne, Ind., and EVP of its parent company, Steel Dynamics, Inc., tells BD+C’s Robert Cassidy about the Steel Joist Manufacturer’s westward expansion, its push to create BIM tools for its products, LEED, and the outlook for the nonresidential construction market.
| Nov 2, 2010
Energy Analysis No Longer a Luxury
Back in the halcyon days of 2006, energy analysis of building design and performance was a luxury. Sure, many forward-thinking AEC firms ran their designs through services such as Autodesk’s Green Building Studio and IES’s Virtual Environment, and some facility managers used Honeywell’s Energy Manager and other monitoring software. Today, however, knowing exactly how much energy your building will produce and use is survival of the fittest as energy costs and green design requirements demand precision.
| Oct 13, 2010
Test run on the HP Z200 SFF Good Value in a Small Package
Contributing Editor Jeff Yoders tests a new small-form factor, workstation-class desktop in Hewlett-Packard’s line that combines performance of its minitower machine with a smaller chassis and a lower price.
| Oct 13, 2010
Prefab Trailblazer
The $137 million, 12-story, 500,000-sf Miami Valley Hospital cardiac center, Dayton, Ohio, is the first major hospital project in the U.S. to have made extensive use of prefabricated components in its design and construction.
