Hidden away in one of the most traditional buildings in Victoria, south-west London, is one of the coolest office spaces you are likely to come across.
Last month, Google unveiled its new engineering floor office space design, known as 'L4', which includes a games room, recording studio, free restaurant and unique coffee bar, along with comfortable sofa areas in place of meeting room tables, and corridors themed like the Starship Enterprise!
It seems the UK office has followed on from Google's San Francisco's office space design, which was the first in the world to include a slide rather than a staircase!
The London project team, led by Henrique Penha, one of the lead designers for Google's mobile phone and tablet software, Android, spent months designing the floor before revealing his plans to the Penson Group architects.
Mr Penha told the Evening Standard, "Making it feel like it's not an office was part of the brief. The meeting rooms have sofas, making them more laid- back. Forcing people to sit differently can help them to think differently" - Which goes hand in hand with Google, one of the pioneering establishments of the 21st century.
Additional design features of Google's L4 include 'white board walls' along the corridors, ideal for staff to jot down ideas on the go. And at the heart of L4 is the 'park' complete with deck chairs, and a rowing boat - you know - for those informal meetings that tend to happen on a lake.
Some have dubbed Google's design over the top, a waste of money and an unproductive working environment, but to me, it sounds like it might be a case of the green-eyed monster rearing its ugly head - after all - wouldn't you want to work in an office space like this?!
Nelson Mattos, Google's Vice President of Engineering told the Daily Mail,
"Contrary to accepted wisdom, fun offices don’t hurt. Our experience is that a comfortable, open and fun environment encourages creativity and openness. Open spaces make chance interactions more likely and chance interactions often lead to the greatest ideas. Many of our products came from unrelated teams finding out about each other’s work and physically meeting to discuss fresh approaches".
[Images from dailymail.com © Google]
