Hess Timber is developing a massive timber façade system for the new Google HQ in London together with Josef Gartner GmbH, a global manufacturer of custom-made façades. Behind what will be the world’s largest wooden façade (23,300 m² total area), a new company headquarters for around 7000 employees is being built. Timberbiz
Hess Timber was also behind the International House project in Sydney which won a number of awards.
On the roof of the ‘Landscraper’, Google employees will have access to a spacious park with trees, green spaces and a running track.
The design of the Google HQ was provided by Bjarke Ingels (BIG Group) and Thomas Heatherwick (Heatherwick Studio), who were already responsible for the architecture of the Google HQ in Mountain View, California.
Currently, various mock-ups on a scale of 1:1 are located on a test site in Gundelfingen, Germany. The experience gained from these “stress tests” is important and necessary to gain insights for later use in the project.
In 2016, the Australia’s first commercial wooden multistorey office building was built in Sydney. The project was a milestone for Hess Timber but also for the Australian construction industry.
To meet the requirements of a commercial building with complex installation levels, Hess Timber developed a new laminated timber beam solution using a combination of spruce and beech that allowed for large service penetrations to be formed within the beam profile whilst providing impressive load bearing capacities.
