Google has leased 9.4 acres of land near Shoreline Boulevard from the city of Mountain View for a sum of $30 million for the construction of the new office. The new office is expected to sprawl over 600,000 square feet and is expected to be Google’s greenest and most sustainable office ever.
Google has hired Germany-based Ingenhoven Architects to design the new premises. Ingenhoven Architects is known to be an environmentally conscious firm that employs sustainable building practices including utilisation of renewable energy sources in their projects.
The proposed green office in California will follow Google’s tradition of committing to environmentally friendly practices. Google’s green initiatives include buying renewable wind energy, using recycled electronic equipment, and encouraging employees to use alternate modes of transportation. The firm’s data centers are known to consume around half the energy than other comparable buildings, an achievement made possible by calculation of energy needs of each building using efficiency measurements, using evaporated cooling and recycled water, building efficient servers and recycling electronic equipment that leaves the facility. Google is also working towards becoming carbon neutral by offsetting the remaining carbon emissions from its offices.
Mountain View city officials were reported stating that Google is expected to submit preliminary plans in May 2011 while construction on the new office premises could begin in early 2012.
