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Google's new Mountain View campus will embrace the great outdoors — and visitors

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Everyone’s buzzing about the feat in design that will soon be Apple’s spaceship campus, but let’s not forget another big tech office in the works: Google’s. The tech behemoth recently shared its most recent plans for its new Mountain View, California, campus that may just make you want to drop everything, move to Mountain View, and just pray that you either get a job or find a way to live in this office unnoticed.

The vision for the new Google community (because it’s hard to call this kind of project a real office) was first debuted back in 2015, but two years have done plenty to refine the initial prospectus. Heralded as a “destination for the local community,” the Google campus seeks to invite non-Googlers into the premises, as the ground story will be open to the public from dawn until dusk. The restaurants and shops found at this level will be usable not only by Google employees, but by tourists and passers-by as well (though they probably won’t get all that food and swag for free).

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Perhaps the most talked-about aspect of Google’s new campus is a giant canopy that is meant to maintain homeostasis in terms of climate, air quality, and sound. But don’t worry — not everything is going to be inside. Rather, Google will be embracing the great outdoors with a number of open spaces, like a public plaza and several “quieter and more intimate spaces for collaboration and private conversation.” The whole building is said to be encircled by something called the Green Loop, which will comprise “multiple natural spaces and smaller park areas,” 9to5Google reports.

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And as for actual workspaces, Google employees will find themselves well situated on the second floor in “highly flexible and reconfigurable” spaces that will allow them to overlook the action below. You can check out the full update for the Mountain View office here.

Lulu Chang
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