Mountain View, CA, USA – (May 12, 2021) – Combining their widely known mission to provide a positive work environment for their employees with their passion to be more environmentally friendly, Google has set out to create a Living Building with LEED Platinum certification. This is Google’s first time constructing offices from scratch, rather than taking over previously existing buildings.

The Google Charleston East Development by BIG Bjarke Ingels Group and Heatherwick Studios in Mountain View, California follows a modular and scalable building technology. BIG describes the project as grounded in the architecture group’s core principle of bold architecture. It is also supposed to reflect the culture of innovation Google’s mother company Alphabet stands for. The main aims of the project are to foster a sense of community while integrating nature and design.

Google’s new Headquarters will tie into the existing Googleplex headquarters and be able to accommodate 3,000 employees. The design, a multitiered canopy system that resembles a series of tents, will regulate air quality, sound, and climate, and feature clerestories to allow for natural light. Also included in the project are solar panels, native landscaping, a 2-acre public plaza that will flow underneath the company’s office space, and design features that will help prevent birds from flying into the building.

Jakob Rope Systems’ role in this project was to provide innovative engineering solutions and supply the Webnet, cables, and specially designed brackets for the soffit structure to serve as a modern and elegant bird netting solution with a removable net installation for easy maintenance. To achieve a bespoke solution, Jakob supplied more than 5.500 square meters of Webnet micro split, into 650 individual panels with a 1.5 mm cable diameter and 40 millimeters aperture.

Webnet has great advantages, it’s impressive how delicate, resistant and flexible the mesh can be, and the visual impairment is minimal and ideal when trying to integrate nature and bring the outdoors inside the building.

“For the Webnet and the 1.500 stainless steel cables used as rope guides, we used a parametric approach to determine the pattern of each panel and the length of each cable”, explains Jakob head engineer Fabian Graber. “Details of brackets and general adjustments were designed very closely with architects and designers, Jakob is the only supplier on the market that can offer this approach allowing us to produce customized solutions that fit perfectly with the surrounding structure”.

For more information: https://www.jakob-usa.com/webnetforgoogleheadquarters/