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San Jose approves massive Google 'Downtown West' project
After nearly four years of securing community buy-in, Google's plan for a San Jose campus is moving forward.
Foxconn drastically scales back plans for $10 billion Wisconsin factory
After promising 13,000 new jobs in the state, Foxconn will only create 1,454 positions.
Google unveils plans for its huge environmentally friendly San Jose campus
Google has given us a glimpse of its San Jose campus, and based on the renders and details it has released, it won’t look anything like a corporate facility once it’s done. Unlike other campuses that are closed off, the one in San Jose was designed to be a true part of the city. Half of the 80 acres it will occupy is reserved for residential spaces and other amenities that will be open to local residents.
Facebook's 'Campus' test hints at a return to its college roots
Facebook started as a platform to connect Harvard students. Now, it's experimenting with a new feature that could bring back a similar vibe.
Amazon opens its largest campus to date in India
Amazon has opened its largest campus to date as it cut the ribbon on a building in Hyderabad, India. The subcontinent is one of the company's fastest-growing markets. Its latest campus spreads over 9.5 acres with 1.8 million sq ft of office space giving room for more than 15,000 employees to work there.
PepsiCo is using robots to deliver snacks to college students
If walking to a regular vending machine seems too inconvenient, what if the vending machine came to you? PepsiCo is doing just that at the University of Pacific campus in Stockton, California with robots called "snackbots." Using a smartphone app, students can order quasi-healthy snacks like Baked Lays, Sunchips or a Starbucks Cold Brew (from PepsiCo's "Hello Goodness" vending platform), and have it delivered between 9 AM and 5 PM to one of 50 locations around the 175 acre campus.
Google puts $1 billion towards new NYC campus
Google announced today that it's investing more than $1 billion in New York City in order to establish a new campus. The move would create a 1.7 million square-foot campus and, over the next decade, double the number of employees the company has in the city, which currently stands at 7,000. The deal includes lease agreements at 315 and 345 Hudson Street as well as a signed letter of intent at 550 Washington Street, and it follows Google's $2.4 billion purchase of the Manhattan Chelsea Market earlier this year.
Apple's latest expansion puts it closer to its biggest rivals
Apple is on track to become the largest private employer in Austin, Texas, after announcing plans to invest $1 billion in a new campus less than a mile away from its existing facilities there. The 133-acre site will initially be home to 5,000 new employees, with the potential to grow to 15,000. The company has also announced plans to establish new sites in Seattle, San Diego and Culver City and expand in cities across the United States including Pittsburgh, New York and Boulder, Colorado over the next three years, with the potential for additional expansion elsewhere in the US over time.
Microsoft's Redmond HQ is getting a multi-billion dollar makeover
Microsoft is planning a multi-billion dollar expansion of its Redmond campus, as it looks to add room for an extra 8,000 workers. Over the next five-to-seven years, the company will construct 18 new buildings, add 6.7 million square feet of renovated workspace, and pump $150 million into transportation improvements and recreational facilities alone. The massive project, which spans the equivalent of 180 football fields, will kick into gear in fall of 2018.
Google's 'innovative' new London HQ features giant moving blinds
They've been a long time coming, but Google has finally laid out its plans for its new "innovative" £1 billion London headquarters located in Kings Cross. This week, the company submitted a detailed planning application to Camden Council, outlining its desire to build an slightly sloped 11-storey building that will sit on a "plinth" of shops and offices, and feature a three-lane 25 metre pool, multi-use games area (hosting basketball, five-a-side football or badminton), a gym and a huge landscaped roof garden.
Google's next campus looks like a campsite from the future
Google's grand designs for a new complex have been upgraded since we saw them last. Its still-in-planning campus (right next to the Googleplex), has benefitted from new renders, revealed in part of the company's planning application to local officials. It's less transparent and, well, dome-y than last year's designs. If you enjoy 40MB pdfs filled with planning detail, you can dive in right here. Meanwhile, we've collected the renders right here:
Apple's reportedly getting a second 'Spaceship' campus
Apple's new 2.8 million square foot California HQ hasn't even been built yet, but already the "spaceship" campus has achieved iconic status. Tim Cook and 12,000 other employees hope to move in late next year, but that won't be the end of the company's expansion in the area. BizJournals reports that Apple has signed a new deal for Landbank Investments LLC's planned Central & Wolfe campus in Sunnyvale, which is roughly a five-mile drive from its current Cupertino home.
Google's future campuses are as flexible as its technology
Hey, Apple and NVIDIA: you aren't going to be the only Silicon Valley giants with outlandish office space. Google has revealed a proposed redesign of its Mountain View campuses (specifically, four sites) that not only doesn't resemble a traditional workplace, but mirrors the company's open, flexible approach to tech. Rather than house everyone in concrete, Google plans "lightweight, block-like" facilities that can shuffle around as workers shift their focus to projects like self-driving cars. The buildings should do a better job of blending into the environment, too. They'll use translucent canopies to let in more air and light, and the emphasis is on protecting nature and the community (by promoting bike paths, local businesses and wildlife) rather than creating a sea of offices and parking lots.
Apple's Economic Impact Report highlights proposed campus' influx of jobs and money
Bringing its proposed campus into the world hasn't exactly been smooth sailing for Apple, excess funds or no, but the company's still focused on all the good the UFO-like structure will bring to its beloved Cupertino. According to a newly released Economic Impact Report, the new buildings will bring with them 7,400 Apple employees to Cupertino, boosting the company's total employment number up to 24,000 in that city. With the higher number comes a big bump in base salary for the company, moving from $2 billion in 2012 to more than $2.9 billion when the campus is completed. And building such a structure is no small task, of course -- the three-year job is expect to create 9,200 full-time "high quality, high wage" construction jobs. The company also outlined plans to fund Cupertino public improvement projects in excess of $66 million -- a number that includes $50.2 million in road, landscape and utility improvements. $35 million a year, meanwhile, is set to fund Apple's alternative commute program, according to the report.
Amazon misses the rainforest, seeks to build a giant greenhouse in Seattle
You can take Amazon out of the jungle, but it'll just create one elsewhere -- at least that's what the company is planning for its inner-city Seattle office complex. A tweaked proposal for Amazon's three-block development, named "Rufus 2.0," was run by Seattle's Design Review Board yesterday, and it now includes a huge biodome structure with the notion that a "plant-rich environment has many positive qualities that are not often found in a typical office setting." It's five floors feature places to get work done, "dining, meeting and lounge spaces," a pair of shops serving the general public and, of course, lots of plants and trees. We've included a few more renders of the multi-bubble glass house after the break, and you'll find even more eye-candy in the source PDF. Forget the platform wars -- the competition for the coolest next-gen campus is on.
Apple revises campus plans, postpones secondary complex to save money
Even with $145 billion in its back pocket, Apple isn't above a little cost-saving. Following rumors that its new campus was $2 billion over budget, the company has revised its plans for the facility. While the UFO-style HQ is untouched, a secondary complex that was to be built along North Tantau Ave. has been pushed back to phase two -- which means it'll begin construction in 2016, just after people start working in the spaceship.
Facebook gets green light to build its second campus at California headquarters
Seems as if building new, fancy properties is quickly becoming the norm within the tech sector. Following in both Apple and Google's spacious footsteps, Facebook too will be looking to amplify its California-based headquarters -- and now it's received the OK from Menlo Park authorities to commence turning Frank Gehry's design vision into a reality. The second campus itself is set to boast nearly 434,000 square feet in total and be built across 22 acres, which will be plenty of space to house anything from a rooftop park to an underground tunnel which leads to Facebook's existent abode. As for city council members, they seem to be rather pleased by Zuck's proposed construction, with one Kirsten Keith expressing how she "feels very lucky that we'll have a Frank Gehry building here." Well then, cheers all around.
From the Apple shareholders' meeting: Approvals, 'new categories' and another campus delay
The Apple shareholders' meeting was held in Cupertino earlier today, and CNBC has a full liveblog of all of the proceedings. There wasn't a lot of hard news out of the meeting, as most of it was taken up with bureaucratic goings-on, including the approval of a certain accounting firm, a few votes on executive payments and the defeat of a proposal to create a Human Rights board committee at the company. All of Apple's directors were re-elected, and Tim Cook got a 99.1 percent approval rating from investors there. After the meeting, Cook took some questions from shareholders and answered them. He agreed that Apple is just as disappointed as investors in "where the stock trades now versus a few months ago -- but we're focused on the long term." Cook crowed about Apple's huge growth so far, and promised that "obviously we're looking at new categories -- we don't talk about them, but we're looking at them." Finally, Cook gave an update on Apple's new campus, saying that the work is ongoing, but it's proving to be a much bigger project than expected. Last we heard, the project was set to be all done in 2015, but Cook now says that, "I project that we will move in, in 2016." You can read through all of the notes of the meeting on CNBC's site. [via MacRumors]
Google's future 42-acre 'Bayview' home gets its own Vanity Fair profile
Usually when we get a peek at Google's Mountain View home it's to gawk at the latest Android-related statue but a Vanity Fair article posted today showed the company's future HQ plans. After initiating plans for a new structure next to the existing Googleplex and then abandoning them last year, it's opting for a new facility designed by Seattle firm NBBJ (which also created offices for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) in another area of the city. Planned to open as soon as 2015 -- potentially ahead of Apple's halo-shaped new digs -- it's called Bay View and consists of nine buildings connected by bridges over 42 acres. According to Google it's designed for many workers to operate just on natural light, and avail themselves of the many cafes and green roofs. Quoted in the article is civil engineer David Radcliffe, who claims that employees will never be more than a two and a half minute walk away from each other, which, along with the bent floorplan of each building, is intended to create opportunities for innovation through "casual collisions". These are just some of the tidbits included in the article waiting beyond the source link, but we're still trying to figure out where they hid parking spots for all the self-driving cars. [Image credit: NBBJ]
NVIDIA plans construction of a new, very polygonal HQ
Well, someone had to offer a counterpart to the giant donut. NVIDIA has decided that its ongoing success in 3D graphics and mobile processors merits a suitably geometric new headquarters, so it's upping the stakes among oddly-shaped offices: it's planning to construct a triangular pair of buildings a stone's throw away from its existing Santa Clara campus. Like its upcoming parallel at the Fruit Company, the NVIDIA facility will focus on both eco-friendly design and wide open spaces that, officially, are meant to reflect the company's loves of art, collaboration and science. Of course, the Tegra creator is quick to admit that it really needs the buildings to accommodate its growing staff count -- and we imagine that "make it look cool" was also part of the proposal. NVIDIA hasn't said just when the new headquarters will be ready, although it will have to make up for lost time if it wants to have Silicon Valley's star attraction.
