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The New and Only Google Engineering Center in Latin America

04.10.19 | By
The New and Only Google Engineering Center in Latin America

BCMF Arquitetos and Mach Arquitetos recently completed the only Google Engineering Center in Latin America, located in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The new 50,000-square-foot office is spread across four floors inside a mixed-use complex in the Santa Efigênia neighborhood. The designers set out to incorporate the vibrancy of the city into the global company’s new engineering center using bold graphics, color, and lighting to create a sophisticated but inspiring workspace.

While most companies focus on filling their offices with traditional work areas, this one knocks it down to half with the rest being common community spaces. The leisure areas boast a warm, vibrant color palette referencing the local culture and landscape, whereas the workspaces incorporate cooler tones with glass, privacy screens, and sleek surfaces, giving nod to the brand’s digital side.

The restaurant invited Máximo Soalheiro who paid tribute to the area’s gastronomy with shelves stocked full of 2,116 spice pots with a range of 200 shades that were mixed to reference local colors.

The graphics on the glass were designed to offer both transparency and privacy for those working in the conference rooms.

Real climate data was collected to generate, through parametric design (in collaboration with SUBdV), a layer of blown up infographics with unexpected aesthetic outcomes. The data related to humidity / precipitation and winds is from Belo Horizonte, while the pressure data is global, generating different “clouds” effects on each floor.

Graphic Design: Hardy Design
Lighting Design: Atiaia Design and LD Studio
Special Collaboration: SUBdV, Máximo Soalheiro and Luis Gluck
Photos: Gabriel Castro

Caroline Williamson is Editor-in-Chief of Design Milk. She has a BFA in photography from SCAD and can usually be found searching for vintage wares, doing New York Times crossword puzzles in pen, or reworking playlists on Spotify.