12/23/2011

Google's London Offices



The search giant's London headquarters in Victoria covers three floors, but last week some of its 350 staff began using a revamped engineering floor - called L4. This is an environment that focuses on creativity, comfort and openness. This unique look was dreamed up to keep the employees at the top of their game.
Meeting rooms feature strange angular sofas, the corridors look like the inside of the starship Enterprise and the workers can play pool and video games during their breaks.
Nelson Mattos, Google's Vice President of Engineering, said: "We hire the brightest and best engineers in the UK and put them together in a highly creative, relaxed and exciting environment."
Ideas are obviously a key part of working for Google, and there's never a shortage of space to write them down - some of the walls in the corridors are made up of huge white boards.
To help keep the engineers' brains fully fuelled, meanwhile, there's plenty of food and liquid refreshment on offer.
There is a 'coffee lab' serving 19 different blends and four free restaurants - including a tapas and sushi bar.
Paying is never a distraction either, because it's all free.
There's also a gym, sound-proofed music room with drums and guitars and a games room with a pool table, video consoles and a giant Samsung TV.
Mattos adds: "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."
The firm is keen to point out that the London office is a very important part of its global operation, with the team there being responsible for many of the most popular Android and iPhone apps.
It's fairly certain that none of the team there would want to be evicted.






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