No New Buildings
Metropolis Magazine|November/December 2019
The energy already embodied in the built environment is a precious unnatural resource. It’s time to start treating it like one.
Thomas de Monchaux
No New Buildings
At its Googleplex headquarters in Mountain View, California, Google has what is arguably one of the most sustainable corporate campuses in America. It has a new million-square-foot complex on a 42-acre landscape, featuring monumental futuristic buildings from Danish architect Bjarke Ingels and British designer Thomas Heatherwick. But these places are not the same place. Although the new campus has no doubt been developed with a sense of environmental duty, the radically sustainable campus is the one next door, which Google has been using since 2003. Foreseeably—and fortunately—they’ll go on using it. Built in 1994, it was once the corporate home of an earlier Palo Alto technology firm, Silicon Graphics.

There was nothing all that special about the generic campus of low-slung boxy offices and parking garages that Google first leased and then acquired in 2006. It was renovated and adapted with stimulating new interiors by Clive Wilkinson, alongside office landscape specialists DEGW, that reflected what was then an unusually nonhierarchical and experimental corporate culture. It was given rooftop solar arrays that provided as much as a third of its operational electricity. But what made that campus special from day one—and simply, radically, and inspirationally more sustainable by the day—is exactly that it was old. It had already been built. It was, in the language of the Valley, a legacy platform—with already irretrievable carbon and capital footprints. There was nothing photogenic or pharaonic about it. Instead, by working from the inside out, with smart strategies of adaptive reuse and technological retrofitting, the company was able to occupy those irretrievable footprints ever more deeply. The cost may be lost, but with stewardship and constant gradual adaption, the benefit persists—conceivably in perpetuity.

Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November/December 2019-Ausgabe von Metropolis Magazine.

Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.

Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November/December 2019-Ausgabe von Metropolis Magazine.

Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.

WEITERE ARTIKEL AUS METROPOLIS MAGAZINEAlle anzeigen
No New Buildings
Metropolis Magazine

No New Buildings

The energy already embodied in the built environment is a precious unnatural resource. It’s time to start treating it like one.

time-read
7 Minuten  |
November/December 2019
The Circular Office
Metropolis Magazine

The Circular Office

Major manufacturers are exploring every avenue to close the loop on workplace furniture.

time-read
1 min  |
November/December 2019
Signs of Life
Metropolis Magazine

Signs of Life

Designers, curators, and entrepreneurs are scrambling to make sense of motherhood in a culture that’s often hostile to it.

time-read
7 Minuten  |
November/December 2019
Interspecies Ethic
Metropolis Magazine

Interspecies Ethic

In probing the relationship between humans and nature, two major exhibitions question the very foundations of design practice.

time-read
6 Minuten  |
November/December 2019
Building on Brand
Metropolis Magazine

Building on Brand

The Bauhaus turned 100 this year, and a crop of museum buildings sprang up for the celebration.

time-read
8 Minuten  |
November/December 2019
Building for Tomorrow, Today
Metropolis Magazine

Building for Tomorrow, Today

Radical change in the building industry is desperately needed. And it cannot happen without the building trades.

time-read
6 Minuten  |
November/December 2019
Strength from Within
Metropolis Magazine

Strength from Within

Maggie’s Centres, the service-focused cancer support network, eschews clinical design to arm patients in their fight for life.

time-read
5 Minuten  |
October 2019
Next-Level Living
Metropolis Magazine

Next-Level Living

The availability of attractive, hospitality-grade products on the market means everyday consumers can live the high life at home.

time-read
1 min  |
October 2019
Mi Casa, Su Casa
Metropolis Magazine

Mi Casa, Su Casa

Casa Perfect creates a memorable shopping experience in lavish private homes.

time-read
1 min  |
October 2019
Enter The Culinarium
Metropolis Magazine

Enter The Culinarium

AvroKO imagines the future of residential amenities—where convenience, comfort, and sustainability meet.

time-read
5 Minuten  |
October 2019